MAG member Margaret Bellafiore and I have just learned that the international project to which we have contributed artist books has been recognized in an article in an Iraqi newspaper commemorating the anniversary of the bombing of the street of booksellers in Baghdad on March 5, 2007. As you will see in the message below from the organizer of the project, poet and bookseller in San Francisco, Beau Beausoleil, this is the first time it has been noted in the Iraqi press. I am honored and humbled that one of the books I created appears in the article. The many original and moving artist books coming forth in the project are traveling beyond and across borders as emissaries of response to what has happened in Iraq, our shared responsibility, and the necessity of expressed connection with the suffering undergone by the Iraqi people as a result of the U.S. led invasion and war. For more information on the book arts project and other images of Margaret's and my books, please see the Mobius news item dated Monday, February 13, 2012. Lutfiya Al-Duleimi, the Iraqi novelist who wrote the newspaper article below, has an essay of personal recollection and mourning, "Al-Mutanabbi St.", forthcoming (2012) in an anthology of poetry and texts edited by Beau Beausoleil and Deema Shehabi, Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here.
Dear Everyone,
The wonderful Iraqi novelist Lutfiya Al-Duleimi has just written me of an article that she wrote for a large Iraqi newspaper marking the fifth anniversary of the bombing. There was a ceremony on al-Mutanabbi Street with relatives of those who died as well as survivors of the blast. But she didn't just report on that moving gathering on al-Mutanabbi Street, she also wrote about our project and pasted in broadsides and two of the artists' books (Anna Wexler and Donna Ruff). This is the first time that this project has been discussed in an Iraqi newspaper!! I can't tell you how happy this makes me to know that the Iraqi people are becoming aware of what we are trying to do!
Beau Beausoleil
The poet Deborah Stambler has recently written a general introduction to the project and its multiple phases for the Huffington Post:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deborah-stambler/al-mutanabbi-street_b_1316997.html
