The Zeitgeist Bookstore, Bubbling Well Road
Posted: December 10th, 2021 | 1 Comment »I’ve blogged (here and here) as well as written (in my collection Destination Peking) about the earlier incarnation of the Zeitgeist Bookstore, a German communist run booskhop), a branch of the Comintern publisher Münzenberg, on North Soochow Road. It was host to many well known leftists in the early 1930s – Agnes Smedley, Hotsumi Ozaki, Lu Xun and other visitors such as Roger Hollis (the probably “fifth man” and later head of British Intelligence and probably recruited by Soviet Intelligence in the bookshop). That part of North Soochow Road (Suzhou North Road) was cleared for development (Embankment House etc).
However, there are references to a relocated Zeitgeist Bookstore at 425 Bubbling Well Road at the junction with Mohawk Road (Nanjing West Road at the junction with Huangpi Road – as this junction had a cemetery to the south west, the race club to the south east it was probably under what is now the Ciro’s plaza) around March 1932. Certainly it seems that Soviet super spy Richard Sorge visited. It also seems to have managed by the old Zeitgeist’s manager, Irene Irene Wiedemeyer, a German communist married to an early member of the Chinese Communist Party.
Anyone got a picture of the bookshop?
My English is poor, but I may have what you want. I wonder if you can communicate with me in Chinese? In addition, I wonder if there is any way for me to read the chapter of your book about the Zeigeist Bookstore?