Baghdad, February 1991
By: Ronny Someck ; translated by Barbara Goldberg with Moshe Dor
Contributors: Goldberg, Barbara, translator; Dor, Moshe, 1932-2016, translator; Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition; Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Artists' Books Collection (Columbia University. Rare Book and Manuscript Library)
Publisher: [publisher not identified]
Published: 2012
Place of publication: Tel Aviv, Israel?]
Language: mul
Subjects: Violence; Pictorial works; 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; Cultural property; Destruction and pillage; 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.

"Distinguished Hebrew poet, Ronny Someck, was born in Baghdad in 1951; he came to Israel as a young child. He studied Hebrew literature and philosophy at Tel Aviv University, and drawing at the Avni Academy of Art. Someck has worked with street gangs, and currently teaches literature, and leads creative writing workshops. Author of nine volumes of poetry and a book for children, written with his daughter, Shirly, has been translated into 39 languages. Selections of his poems have appeared in Arabic translations, in French, Catalan, Albanian, Italian, Macedonian, Yiddish, Croatian and English. Someck has been a recipient of the Prime Minister's Award, the Yehuda Amichai Award for Hebrew Poetry, the 'Wine Poem Award' in Struga Poetry Evenings, Macedonia, 2005, and the Hans Berghhuis prize for poetry 2006"--A blog posted by Nirala Publications (viewed July 20, 2015).
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.