Shakespeare & Co.

This is one of my early pieces.
I went to Paris to sleep in a a bookstore run by an American who didn't go home after WWII.
Instead, George Whitman created Shakespeare & Co on the Left Bank.
It's a place where people like Allen Ginsberg, Henry Miller & William S. Burroughs lived for a while before they became Allen Ginsberg, Henry Miller & William S. Burroughs.
Today, George lets writers, poets and wanderers sleep in his store if they do 3 things for him - write him a story of their life, help around the store for a couple of hours, nd read a book a day. I stayed there for a week.
I had never shot anything before this, but Bart Noonan of Reuters had a great tip for me: If it looks cool, shoot it.

Air date: March 2000
Network: CBC Newsworld
Producer, Camera, Writer, Presenter: Yasir Khan
Editor: Liz Rosch