This website features Mouse Parallax Effects.
This website features Mouse Parallax Effects.
A DARK SCROLL
JOURNEY
THIS IS NOT A FUCKING BOOKSHOP
Our website tells a story. It doesn’t sell.
CHÁRŌN IS NOT A PUBLISHING HOUSE FOUNDED TO MOVE IN THE DRAWING ROOMS OF THE UPPER BOURGEOISIE, NOR TO FLATTER AN ÉLITE THAT SEEKS TO INSTRUMENTALISE CULTURE, TURNING IT INTO A PRIVILEGE RESERVED FOR A SELECT FEW.
IT IS NOT A VEHICLE FOR SELF-CONGRATULATION, NOR DOES IT SUBSIST ON COMPLACENCY AMID THE CHAMBERS OF LITERARY SALONS.
CHÁRŌN IS A MEANS OF OFFERING THOSE WHO CHOOSE TO EMBARK ON THIS JOURNEY WITH US A WORLD OF STORIES AND CULTURE, WHERE ALL ARE WELCOME.
We are underground by nature.
BUT IN VENICE THERE IS NO EARTH TO DIG INTO.
THERE IS ONLY WATER IN WHICH TO SINK.
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Our story does not dwell in grand aristocratic palaces ablaze with light and celebration.
IT BEGINS HERE. BENEATH THE SURFACE.
WHERE THE CURRENTS RUN UNSEEN.
M A N I F E S T O
Chárōn is a publishing house founded to wrest literature
away from the false idea that it belongs to an elite.
Not to simplify it, but to release it from the rituals of admission.
For Chárōn, literature is not a privilege.
It is not a display.
It is not a badge of status.
Our position is clear: in dialogue with all, beholden to none.
Fairs and associations have their place.
They do not define us.
For years, the industry has preached
inclusion while indulging the luxuries of the superfluous.
The ‘catalogue’ is brandished as a status symbol; the fair is treated as a sacrament.
The result is hollow: an illusion of prestige, an illusion of devotion to readers.
Access remains difficult, prices remain prohibitive, and the whole apparatus remains designed to intimidate.
We exist to reverse that logic.
Our task is to bring literature to those who have always been made to feel excluded from it.
We do so through the right books, accessible prices, and a design that invites rather than repels.
And where the market does not reach, Chárōn APS acts:
we promote free-access initiatives in prisons, libraries, schools, and civic spaces.
Because the right to read is not conferred by institutions.
It is exercised in practice.
Meanwhile, while the curtain goes up, authors and collaborators behind the scenes are too
often paid like extras in a production built on their labour and indifferent to their worth.
For Chárōn, the book is both an economic and a moral pact.
That is why we do not chase ubiquity at any cost.
We choose disintermediation.
We choose alliance.
We speak directly to readers, and we build clear agreements with the independent bookshops
that choose to support us, agreements founded on mutual respect and sustainable terms.
We do not flood shelves with disposable new releases.
We stand for the life of the catalogue.
We give books the time to find their readers.
Anyone who discovers us today can trust that our titles will not be pulped tomorrow.
Fewer intermediaries mean resources where they belong: on the page.
Higher royalties for authors.
Fair and timely pay for translators, editors, designers, and proofreaders.
Because publishing, if it is to deserve the name, must be a labour pact before it becomes a discourse about labour.
To recognise, in material terms, those who create and those who care for books does not make us exceptional.
It is the minimum.
we know you’re visiting from a touch device, which means you don’t have a mouse.
Do yourself a favour: switch to a desktop and enjoy the ride.
we know you’re visiting from a touch device, which means you don’t have a mouse.
Here is where you can find us
The Merchant of Venice’s international bookshop and fragrance library in San Marco
LIBRERIA STUDIUM
VENEZIA
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Coming Soon ...
Coming Soon ...
Coming Soon ...
Do yourself a favour: switch to a desktop and enjoy the ride.
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Become part of the abyss.