Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here

In April 2013 the al-Mutanabbi broadsides have come to the National Library in Baghdad - and they came to stay.

To mark the 5th anniversary of the bombing an anthology is being prepared to be out in March 2012. The work will be some 300 pages with essays and poetry. PM Press will be donating the layout and design. The al-Mutanabbi-Street-Coalition has to meet the expenses for having the work printed. Further down this page you’ll find a link leading to the video of the Santa Fee reading - there you will encounter works that will be part of the anthology.

To protest & commemorate the bombing of al-Mutanabbi Street, the centre of bookselling in Baghdad, on March 5th 2007, the al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition is organizing readings and other events that will beginn in March 2009 as a fundraiser for Doctors Without Borders.

One project in the course of many others was the al-Mutanabbi-Broadside-Project:

Many thanks to all the printers who contributed broadsides for this project in time for the November deadline. The total of 130 printers was reached for this project organised by the al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition which has been arranging readings and other events since April 2007 to fundraise for Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).Al-Mutanabbi Street Broadsides

You can see some of the broadside contributions we received to send on, on our exhibitions pages.

For any details on the project please contact Beau Beausoleil - Founder of the al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition: Beau Beausoleil

The first set broadsides can be viewed at the Florida Atlantic University/Jaffe Center for Book Arts site, where all the broadsides will be added to the online gallery:

Text from Sarah Bodman, UWE Bristol

Print on the right: Masoud Eftekhari (UK, 2009)

Radio-Interview on the Broadside-Project

Report on a Reading in Farsi

There will be an exhibition of the broadsides  at Baghdad Iraq National Library.

The al-Mutanabbi-Broadsides start touring venues for exhibition in 2010. If you are interested in putting these prints on show contact
Sarah Bodman

Rijin Sahakian, who has been curating the project so far, leaves for a one year grant for research in Iraqi arts.

The Death and Life of Al-Mutanabbi-Street - John Rylands Library, University of Manchester (UK)

The broadsides will be on show at the John Rylands Library, University of Manchester, from April 7 til June 26, 2011.
Thanks go to Katie Donlon for her organizing and the photos of the exhibition in this wonderful library.

The exhibition of the broadsides is part of a joint project of the Library and the Imperial War Museum North (IWMN) which will be showing Jeremy Deller’s “Baghdad, 5 March 2007” - the car destroyed in the bombing.

There are a couple of events going along with the exhibition at John Rylands Library:

Forbidden: Saturday 7th May, 12noon - 12.45pm
The history of censorship - tickets GBP 3.-

Any street, anywhere: Thursday, 19th May, 5.30pm - 6.15pm
A talk with Sarah Bodman - European representative of the coalition - on the project

Santa Fee, New Mexico (USA)

Three al-Mutanabbi-Broadside-Printers have been organizing an exhibit plus reading in Santa Fee, New Mexico: credits go to Suzanne Vilmain, Tom Leech and Janet Rodney for all their effort. They have recorded the whole of the one-hour reading on video:

Reading + exhibit on al-Mutanabbi-Street

Yavapai College Art Gallery, Prescott Arizona (USA)

Michael Gallagher has been curating a show at Yavapai College Art Gallery, Prescott Arizona, with all the al-Mutanabbi-Street-Boradsides in total.

Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan (USA)

The broadsides have been on show in early 2011 in the Undergraduate Library of Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan. Thanks to Diany Sybeldon and Alise Alousi who have been doing the organizing and taking fotos of the event which you can see here on the right and below.

Broadside Shows in 2011

Santa Cruz Library, Santa Cruz, California: 1 May-30 June
Conference on Book Destruction, Senate House, University of London, UK: 16 April
The John Rylands University Library, Manchester, UK: see above
Central Library, Dublin, Rep. of Ireland: 14-31 March
Undergrad. Library of Wayne State  university, Detroit, USA: see above
New Mexico History Museum, Santa Fe, New Mexico: 4 March-1 May
The Museum Joure, The Netherlands, 19 February-19 March
Yavapai College Art Gallery, Prescott, Arizona, USA: see above
The Market House, Monaghan, Rep. of Ireland: February

Broadside Shows in 2010

Ink Spot Press, Brighton, UK: 9 December-10 January 2011
Bower Ashton Library, UWE Bristol, UK: 9 December -30 January 2011
Thoreau Center (Tides Foundation) Presidio, San Francisco USA: 14-31 October
Northern Print, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: 4 October-28 November (find more)
Florida Atlantic University, Schmidt Center Gallery, Boca Raton, Florida, USA: 18 September-30 October
The Rooms Provincial Art Gallery, St. John’s, Newfoundland, Can: 15 September-27 November
The San Francisco Zen Center, San Francisco, California, USA: 1-30 April

Broadside Shows 2008

Jaffee Center for Book Arts, FLorida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, Florida, USA: 9 May-28 July
Sratoga Library, Sratoga, California, USA: 4 March-28 April

Broadside Shows in 2007

San Francisco Center for the Book, California, USA: 19 October-21 November

Find out about the new project:
An Inventory of Al-Mutanabbi-Street.

Want these informations in German?
Just go here.