Brighton’s only black-owned bookshop is under threat of closure after the rent for its shop quadrupled.
Carolynn Bain, who owns Afrori Books in Kensington Street, was given a year rent-free, and then a reduced rate for the following six months.
But now, the rent is being put up closer to market rates, and so she is hoping to relocate.
The estimated cost to move premises is close to £25,000 and a crowdfunder is being set up to help with moving costs.
Ms Bain said: “It was a complete shock. For the first year that we were here, they gave us the space rent-free.
“The ideal is that we find a shop with offices above it, and another organisation will take the office and share the rent with us, which is obviously massive, because that takes a lot of pressure off of us.
“We need space to continue to be more than a bookshop, which is what Brighton has come to expect of us in the last 15 months.
“People don’t come to us because we’re the cheapest, they come here because they really believe in what we want to do, that we want to give a platform to black authors.”
After its first year, Afrori Books has paid a negotiated rent, but after being presented with a quadrupled rate, has declined the landlord’s offer and will move out of the building by Friday, 31 March.
The shop runs with 10 volunteers and one paid employee, and since opening in October 2021, has hosted art exhibitions, cinema events, afro hair education workshops, and an anti-racist children’s club.
Ms Bain has thanked the community for helpful suggestions, including an offer of shop space in Lewes and an idea to go mobile in a bus or van.
The Brighton Book Festival that Afrori Books co-founded with the Feminist Bookshop is not under threat.
Afrori Books, which specialises in titles by black authors, is also the only black-owned bookshop in Sussex.
There are fewer than 20 black-owned businesses in Brighton, and only three in the North Laine and The Lanes.
The crowdfunder will be announced on its social media.
