The Silk Roads

It all began one night crossing the North Sea, on a boat from Harwich to Rotterdam and then onwards overland all the way to Central Asia. Via ferries, buses, trains and cargo ships, I made my way to Kyrgyzstan, where I ended up spending a couple of years teaching in the capital city of Bishkek.

Whilst living in Kyrgyzstan I started learning Russian, a very rewarding if difficult challenge. Alongside studying the language, I also read plenty of books about the Russian-speaking world. The richest reading experience usually came from translated literature, whether it was one of the classics by Leo Tolstoy or a short novel by the most popular Kyrgyz author, Chyngyz Aitmatov.

Bendico Book Club

When I came back home to the UK, I wanted to find a way to promote translated literature; it is slowly growing but still hovers somewhere below 5% of the total fiction sales in the country. That’s when I had the idea of starting a book club, sending out works of translated literature to our members each month.

I wanted to move beyond just Russian and incorporate five languages in total. Japanese is the most popular translated literature in the UK and I was sold after I loved Haruki Murakami’s Norwegian Wood. For the other three languages, I wanted languages that had a rich literary tradition and were also popular for people to try and learn so I brought in French, Italian and Spanish.

Bookshop Meets Language School

Named after the loyal Great Dane in Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa's novel The Leopard, Bendico is beginning life with the aim of creating a community of readers who are curious to explore the world of translated literature.

I also wanted to make it easy for people to dive deeper into the literature that surrounds our five languages. You can find collections of five books organised around different themes and topics, moving beyond just translated literature with a mixture of fiction and non-fiction.

My vision for the future is to open our own space which will be a bookshop by day, language school by night. I hope the books will provide a fascinating window into other cultures and potentially inspire people to learn a foreign language. Head to the Language Learning page to find textbooks and graded reading material to help you on your journey.

Tim, founder