Casa Kundera: Where Coffee Brews Bonhomie and Bonds with Books by Satyarth Pandita
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Satyarth Pandita is in conversation with Pradeepika Saraswat, founder of Casa Kundera, a cafe cum bookstore where she shares her journey that led to the establishment of this cultural sanctuary.
“I had found my religion: nothing seemed more important to me than a book. I saw the library as a temple.”
―Jean-Paul Sartre
Café-bookshops, often dubbed as literary coffeehouses, stand at the intersection of two timeless human pursuits – literature and the enjoyment of a good cup of coffee. The concept of literary coffeehouses can be traced back to the European Enlightenment period when coffeehouses emerged as hubs of intellectual discourse. Coffeehouses became meeting places for writers, philosophers, and artists in cities like Paris, London, and Vienna. The caffeinated beverages fueled discussions on literature, politics, and philosophy, giving rise to a culture that celebrated the exchange of ideas over a shared cup of coffee. The famous Café De Flore is one such literary coffeehouse established in the 1880s, which was a haven for great writers, artists and intellectuals like Joris Karl Huysmans, Remy de Gourmont, Raymond Queneau, Truman Capote, Albert Camus, Ernest Hemingway, Pablo Picasso, Emil Cioran, Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. In Sartre’s words:
