The Far-Right Attacked My Bookshop. Why Did This Country Let Them Get Away With It?

By Jing Xuan Teo

Back in 2020, at the height of the #BlackLivesMatter movement and in the middle of completing my Master’s degree, I opened a specialist bookstore with a friend.

We were both passionate about literature, and as women of colour, we were looking for a way to make tangible change in an old, racist industry. We landed on Amplify – an antiracist, social enterprise bookstore that specialises in books by BIPOC authors, now based in West Melbourne. 

We’re one of many specialist bookstores in Australia, but the only one of our kind. Roughly 11 per cent of books published are by an author of colour. Amplify provides a space where authors of colour don’t have to fight to be seen, and oftentimes, we are one of the few stores in the country that would stock their books.

Books like Rosewater by Tade Thompson, It’s Not Just You by Tori Tsui, and The Deep by Rivers Solomon would otherwise not be accessible if not for Amplify. Indie darlings like Kitten by Stacey Yu, But Won’t I Miss Me by Tiffany Tsao and One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkadare not just championed, but primarily discovered through a store like Amplify. 

More than anything, Amplify is a safe space for readers, especially readers of colour, to browse, hang out, and discover new books.