Eslite Dunnan: How Taiwan Invented the 24-Hour Bookstore

On May 31, 2020, at midnight Taipei time, a Dunhua Road bookstore quietly switched off its lights for the last time. Hundreds of strangers stood on the sidewalk holding flowers, candles, and books they had bought hours earlier. Many of them were crying. The place they were mourning wasn’t a temple or a theater. It was a bookstore.

That bookstore was Eslite Dunnan (誠品敦南) — and for 21 years it had done something no bookstore on earth was doing: it stayed open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

The accident that started it

Eslite (pronounced “EH-slit,” from the French word for “elite”) opened its Dunhua South Road flagship in 1989, founded by a Taiwanese businessman named Robert Wu. The 24-hour format wasn’t the original plan. In 1999, after a major renovation, the store experimented with staying open all night during the relaunch week as a marketing gimmick. The lines never went away. Taipei’s night owls — students cramming for exams, salarymen avoiding apartments full of in-laws, insomniacs, taxi drivers on break, couples on second dates that ran long — kept showing up at 2am, 3am, 4am, browsing in the soft amber light. Eslite extended the experiment a week, then a month, then forever.

Why it became a cultural pilgrimage

Eslite Dunnan wasn’t just a place to buy books. Taiwanese university students used it as a free overnight study hall. Backpackers fresh off a red-eye treated it as a clean, quiet waiting room before hotel check-in. First dates went there because conversation was easier than karaoke. Writers like Wu Ming-Yi credited it as the place they drafted entire novels. It was, in the Taipei vernacular, the city’s 客廳 (kètīng) — its living room.

The store sold mostly Chinese-language literature, but the foreign-language section was famously well-curated, and the gentle background music (no chart-pop, no muzak) became its own subculture: people bought albums based on what was playing at 3am.

Why it closed

The Dunhua building’s lease ran out in 2020 and the landlord wouldn’t renew on terms Eslite could afford. The pandemic, which had already gutted late-night foot traffic, sealed it. On the final night, the store stayed open until midnight as usual, then — for the first time in 21 years — locked its doors.

Eslite still operates more than 40 stores across Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, and Japan, and the Xinyi A11 branch in Taipei stays open until 11pm (no longer 24h, but the closest thing to the original feeling). The Songyan Cultural Park location, built inside a restored 1937 tobacco factory, is now the spiritual flagship: bookstore, design boutique, restaurant, and hotel under one roof.

Why this is so Taiwan

That a bookstore could survive 21 years of 24-hour operation says something specific about Taiwan: a culture where reading is still considered a public good, where being alone in public is normal and unembarrassing, and where night markets, convenience stores, and bookstores all run on the same unspoken contract — somewhere should always be open if you need it. Eslite Dunnan was just the prettiest expression of that idea.

Where to go now

If you’re visiting Taipei and want the closest thing to the original experience, the Eslite Xinyi store (誠品信義) at 11 Songgao Road is open daily 11am–11pm. For atmosphere, the Songyan Cultural Park (松山文創園區) branch is the must-visit — the building alone is worth the trip. Both are inside a 10-minute walk of the Taipei City Hall MRT station.

Pair it with a long browse, a coffee from the in-store café, and — if you’re anything like the locals — at least one book you didn’t plan to buy.

For more iconic Taipei experiences, see our guides to Things to Do in Taipei, Taiwan Convenience Store Culture, and Taipei Nightlife.