Ábaco Libros y Café

This guide to Abaco Libros y Cafe in Cartagena follows Maria Elsa Gutierrez, an industrial engineer who traded spreadsheets for shelves of Garcia Marquez and opened this colonial-corner bookstore in 2002, building eighteen years of steady trade before March 2020 shut its doors. It tracks what happened to the staff, the bills that kept arriving with every light off, and the small delivery counter and online shop she tried in their place. Listen for the numbers she gave a reporter along the way, and for what she said was the only thing keeping the business alive.