De Groene Waterman has sold books at Wolstraat 7, in the cobbled back streets of the old town, since 1968. It is a cooperative, which means it has no owner in the usual sense: anyone who wants to can become a co-owner, and there are no profit-driven shareholders to answer to. The shop describes its stock as literary and left-wing, and it has kept to that brief for close to six decades.
A shop owned by its readers
The model shapes the shelves. Without profit-driven owners, the cooperative can give a chance to lesser-known publishers and authors, and it accepts that their books sell more slowly and stay on the shelf longer. Since its founding the shop has tried to balance social engagement with enough money to run a proper literary bookshop. The day-to-day work is led by its coordinator, Katrien Merckx, and the cooperative’s own website is at groenewaterman.be.
The ownership structure is the right one for a shop like this, because a bookseller who answers to members rather than shareholders can afford to keep a poetry section and a slow-selling translation on the shelf for a season. That is not a romantic point but a stock-control one. London’s Housmans, opened by a group of pacifists in 1945 and run since 1959 from 5 Caledonian Road in King’s Cross, survives on a similar arrangement: a non-profit owned by a trust rather than a chain.
What is on the shelves
The range is wider than the politics suggest. Visitors find current and classic literature, a strong poetry section, and philosophy and history chosen with current affairs in mind, often from an international angle. Since 2014 the shop has worked with La Dante di Anversa, the local branch of the Italian cultural society, to stock Italian-language books, and the Dante’s readers’ circle meets in the shop’s cellar about every four months, sometimes to discuss an Italian novel. The shop’s feminist reading group curates the “Femina Libera favourites”, a list of 29 audiobooks sold through the shop’s account on Libro.fm.
The shelves have been tested. The Flemish literary magazine Gierik ran a bookshop test against a fixed list of 30 titles that, in its editors’ view, belong in any literary bookshop. After the first round in 2000 the title of best literary bookshop in Flanders went to De Reyghere in Bruges. In the second round De Groene Waterman found 19 of the 30 and took the title, with praise for its stock of current and classic literature, its poetry and the knowledge of its staff.
The cellar
Below the shop, a basement under brick vaults is being developed into a cultural cellar for reading groups, book presentations, performances and debates. The shop also hosts authors. On 14 January 2020, at noon, the Dutch novelist Arnon Grunberg presented his novel Bezette gebieden there, interviewed by Anneleen van Offel, with a signing afterwards.
Earlier descriptions of the shop, ours included, promised a café for coffee between chapters. We could find no evidence of one. Readers who want a glass with their books can read our piece on Luddites Books & Wine; for another independent bookshop in the city, there is CronopiO on Kasteelpleinstraat.
A call from Dua Lipa’s team
In June 2025 the shop got attention from an unlikely corner. Dua Lipa, the British-Albanian singer, had just added a book club to Service95, the newsletter she has run since 2021, and she named De Groene Waterman her first independent bookshop of the month, the week before three concerts at the Sportpaleis. About three weeks earlier, someone from her team had emailed the shop for current recommendations, and the shop had sent a list. Lipa called it “a cosy spot in Antwerp” that celebrates “original, thought-provoking reads that spark ideas and conversations”.
Merckx took it calmly. “Getting a compliment for what you do is always nice, especially when it comes from an unexpected source,” she told The Brussels Times. The singer’s team sent stickers for a Dua Lipa shelf, which Merckx planned to put up. Did she expect a visit? “With such a busy schedule, three concerts in three nights, I think the chances of her dropping by are very slim.”
Then, a bookseller to the last: “I think it would be great fun to chat about books with her.”
De Groene Waterman
- Address: Wolstraat 7, 2000 Antwerp
- Founded: 1968
- Who runs it: a cooperative of its members; coordinator Katrien Merckx
- Phone: 03 232 93 94
- Why it works: owned by readers, so slow books get time on the shelf
