The song lives on
By: John Bently
Contributors: Mutanabbī, Abū al-Ṭayyib Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥusayn, 915 or 916-965; Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition; Liver & Lights Scriptorium; Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Artists' Books Collection (Columbia University. Rare Book and Manuscript Library)
Publisher: Liver & Lights Scriptorium
Published: 2011
Place of publication: London
Language: eng
Subjects: Freedom of speech; Pictorial works; Violence; Booksellers and bookselling; Bombings; Iraq War, 2003-2011; Protest movements; Books and reading in art; Intellectual life; Social conditions; Censorship; Terrorism in art; In art; War and civilization; Vehicle bombs; Visual literature; Specimens; Artists' books; Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition
Description: This collection supports and promotes awareness to the important mission and framework of the Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Coalition's focus on the lasting power of the written word and the arts in support of the free expression of ideas, the preservation of shared cultural spaces, and the importance of responding to attacks, both overt and subtle, on artists, writers, and academics working under oppressive regimes or in zones of conflict, despite the destruction of that literary/cultural content.

"Contained in my three books is a song that continues to live on even though the original singers have been silenced. Varying slightly in each of the three books, the text of the song is approximately 100 words in constant mutation, that must change slightly, sometimes by just one word, every time the song is written down or sung. I started writing the text in 1995, on hearing of the execution in Nigeria of the writer Ken Saro Wiva. As the project grew, it became more generally about the issue of freedom of speech. The first 100 versions of the text were originally published as Liver & Lights no 23. 100 Books in 1999. As long as there are oppressors and innocent victims, this song will continue to be written and sung, metamorphosing eternally out of the reach of tyrannical censors"--Artist's statement from the Book Arts at the Centre for Fine Print Research, UK website.
Notes: On March 5th, 2007, a car bomb exploded on al-Mutanabbi Street in Baghdad. Al-Mutanabbi Street is located in a mixed Shia-Sunni area. More than 30 people were killed and more than 100 wounded. Al-Mutanabbi Street, the historic center of Baghdad bookselling, holds bookstores and outdoor bookstalls, cafes, stationery shops, and even tea and tobacco shops. It has been the longstanding heart and soul of the Baghdad literary and intellectual community for centuries. In response to the attack, a San Francisco poet and bookseller, Beau Beausoleil, rallied a community of international artists and writers to produce a collection of letterpress-printed broadsides (poster-like works on paper), artists' books (unique works of art in book form), and an anthology of writing, all focused on expressing solidarity with Iraqi booksellers, writers and readers. The coalition of contributing artists calls itself Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Coalition.

Gift; Beau Beausoleil; 2019-2020.