Obituary for Louisa Solano
Louisa Solano, former owner of the Grolier Poetry Book Shop in Cambridge, Mass., died April 20. She was 80. The bookshop was founded in September 1927 by Adrian Gambet and Gordon Cairnie. Solano purchased and took over its operation in 1974 after Cairnie's death. In 2006, she sold the bookshop to Ifeanyi Menkiti, who died in 2019. His family still runs the business.
In a tribute on Facebook, the bookstore noted that in her heyday as owner, the Harvard Square indie was "a creative wellspring for new and well-known poets.... Solano's vision, hard work and inspiration made the Grolier Poetry Book Shop a precious Jewel in the Crown of Cambridge. Her memory and legacy lives on at the Grolier."
When Solano was in high school, she had a part-time job in the Cambridge Library, where a circulation desk librarian "took an interest in her and introduced her to the Grolier Book Shop and the most memorable event of her life, first looking through the door of the Grolier with its tables of jumbled piles of books, armchair, and paintings and drawings, and feeling that she would own it one day," the Grolier wrote.
After graduating from Boston University in 1966, she worked in Goodspeed's (antiquarian) Book Shop. She became Grolier Book Shop's owner in 1974, and by 1979 had developed it into an all-poetry store and one of the cultural highlights of Harvard Square.
Solano's many honors include the Local Hero Award from New England Monthly, the Women's National Book Association Award, the Cambridge Peace and Justice Award, the Best of Boston Award (twice), a special Excellence in Business Award from the Cambridge Chamber of Commerce and the Harvard Square Business Association, and the Lifetime Achievement Award from Ibbetson Press.
"Her true literary legacy was turning the Grolier Poetry Book Shop in Cambridge into a more welcoming place for writers and readers as she made room on shelves for those whose books hadn't found a home with the previous owner's preference for poetry's white male pantheon," the Boston Globe reported.
"Louisa rescued one of the greatest institutions in Harvard Square," poet Gail Mazur observed. "It seems, in retrospect--it seemed then--that it was a miracle, that a tiny bookshop adamantly dealing only with poetry, could survive into the era of crazy rentals and transient businesses. We who loved the Grolier were grateful, and awed!"
"I suppose my mission in life is to make sure that poetry stays alive in America," Solano once said. "I'll do everything I can for it."
In a tribute on Facebook, the bookstore noted that in her heyday as owner, the Harvard Square indie was "a creative wellspring for new and well-known poets.... Solano's vision, hard work and inspiration made the Grolier Poetry Book Shop a precious Jewel in the Crown of Cambridge. Her memory and legacy lives on at the Grolier."
When Solano was in high school, she had a part-time job in the Cambridge Library, where a circulation desk librarian "took an interest in her and introduced her to the Grolier Book Shop and the most memorable event of her life, first looking through the door of the Grolier with its tables of jumbled piles of books, armchair, and paintings and drawings, and feeling that she would own it one day," the Grolier wrote.
After graduating from Boston University in 1966, she worked in Goodspeed's (antiquarian) Book Shop. She became Grolier Book Shop's owner in 1974, and by 1979 had developed it into an all-poetry store and one of the cultural highlights of Harvard Square.
Solano's many honors include the Local Hero Award from New England Monthly, the Women's National Book Association Award, the Cambridge Peace and Justice Award, the Best of Boston Award (twice), a special Excellence in Business Award from the Cambridge Chamber of Commerce and the Harvard Square Business Association, and the Lifetime Achievement Award from Ibbetson Press.
"Her true literary legacy was turning the Grolier Poetry Book Shop in Cambridge into a more welcoming place for writers and readers as she made room on shelves for those whose books hadn't found a home with the previous owner's preference for poetry's white male pantheon," the Boston Globe reported.
"Louisa rescued one of the greatest institutions in Harvard Square," poet Gail Mazur observed. "It seems, in retrospect--it seemed then--that it was a miracle, that a tiny bookshop adamantly dealing only with poetry, could survive into the era of crazy rentals and transient businesses. We who loved the Grolier were grateful, and awed!"
"I suppose my mission in life is to make sure that poetry stays alive in America," Solano once said. "I'll do everything I can for it."