About Us

Parentheses was established in March 1989 in Hong Kong as an unique private French bookstore in China. Since 2001, we moved to 2^nd floor from the 1^st floor of Duke of Wellington House which is located in Wellington Street, Central, Hong Kong.

Our owner, Ms Madeline Progin, runs Parentheses in Hong Kong mainly because of her passion on reading and recognizing the lack of French books in Hong Kong.

“Probably it’s because I’m a big reader, I love reading books. When I stay in Hong Kong, I miss the French books very much. Apart from that, I also want to meet the book-lovers by owning a bookstore. I really enjoy sharing my favorite books with people and I want to show them books and to share with them.” Ms Progin said.

“And I want people to be able to find French books here. Mostly Chinese people don’t learn enough to be able to read novels in French; they just read simple stories or novels.

“Also, Hong Kong, as a world city, doesn’t have any bookstore which is specialized in selling foreign language books like German or Spanish books. So Parentheses here is especially for French.

“And I want more small French shops to be found in Hong Kong. Those small shops are rather than only selling fashion, jewelry etc.” Ms Progin added.

Today, Parentheses has been running for 16 years. Apart from selling books, we strive to promote French culture in Hong Kong as well.

Retailing

Our bookstore has its own character which aimed to provide high quality services to meet your needs. You can find a wide variety of books in our bookstore such as novels, travel guides, cooking books, art books, children books, French comic books, school textbooks, French-learning materials, French magazines, newspapers, as well as French music CDs, movies on VCD or DVD.

Aside from our services directly to you through our retail business, we have also set up a special service to provide books, newspaper and services via direct sales to schools, universities, different institutes and commercial organizations in Hong Kong.

Social and educational promotional efforts

Throughout these years, we have worked in Hong Kong with a French outlook that orientates our customers to the Francophone countries and even the rest of the world. We have also actively participated in various social and educational promotional efforts, regularly conducting or assisting in holding exhibitions and academic seminars, sponsoring the activities of Alliance Français. We also hold some signature conference and a booth in the Book Fair every year.