The Iraqi bookseller
By: handset in timeworn wood types by L. Szujewska
Contributors: Shadid, Anthony, author, dedicatee; Ensatina Press; Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition; Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Artists' Books Collection (Columbia University. Rare Book and Manuscript Library)
Publisher: [Ensatina Press]
Published: 2012
Place of publication: Penngrove, California]
Language: eng
Copyright date: 2012
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; War in art; Death in art; Artists' books; Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition
Other titles: Mutanabbi Street starts here.
Description: "[C]reated as a follow-up to a broadside created for the Mutannabbi Street Broadside Project in 2007. Both were inspired by an article written by Anthony Shadid for the Washington Post Foreign Service on March 12, 2007, entitled 'The Bookseller's Story Ending Much Too Soon.' Shadid's story is a personal account of the Mutannabi Street bombing told through a reminiscence of his friendship with Mohammed Hayawi, a bookseller on the street, which has served as the heart of Bagdad's intelligentsia for centuries"--Artist's website, viewed on February 5, 2015.

"The book features the quote from Mohammed Hayawi used in the original broadside--'I challenge anyone to say, what has happened, what is happening now and what will happen in the future'--in the context of an excerpt from Shadid's article about Hayawi. It is intended to be both a remembrance of Hayawi and a tribute to Shadid's poignant story of his friend. Sadly, as I was finishing the printing of the book, Anthony Shadid died on February 13, 2012, while in Syria covering the uprising there"--Vamp & Tramp Booksellers' website, viewed on February 5, 2015.
Notes: Cover title.

Limited edition of 20 copies, signed and numbered by the artist.

"In memory of Anthony Shadid, Mideast foreign correspondent, who died covering the Syrian uprising February 16, 2012. 20 copies printed for the 'Mutanabbi Street Starts Here' project."

"[B]roadside has been folded into 8 equal sections and attached to the ... boards. Unfolding the broadside provides for three separate page spreads ... Letterpress printed in red, black, and green inks with timeworn wood types and Univers foundry type on Rives BFK. Bound in paper covered boards"--Vamp & Tramp Booksellers' website, viewed on February 5, 2015.

Gift; Beau Beausoleil; 2019-2020.

On March 5, 2007, a car bomb was detonated on Mutanabbi Street, the centuries-old center of bookselling in Baghdad. Soon afterwards, an international group of poets, writers, artists, letterpress printers, booksellers, and readers gathered to create the Mutanabbi Street Coalition, in response not only to the tragic loss of life, but also to the idea of a targeted attack on a street where ideas have always been exchanged. The coalition's goal was to respond to the tragedy with positive creativity: by printing broadsides featuring the work of Iraqi poets and supporting Doctors Without Borders.