Mutanabbi Street Starts Here

I've come to feel that wherever someone sits down to read, or where someone takes up their pen and paper to write, it is there that Mutanabbi Street starts.

––Beau Beausoleil, May 2008
 

Mutanabbi Street is the historic center of Baghdad bookselling, a winding street filled with bookstores and outdoor book stalls. Named after the 10th century classical Arab poet, Al-Mutanabbi, this street is the heart and soul of the Baghdad literary and intellectual community.
On March 5, 2007, a car bomb was detonated on Mutanabbi Street. At least 30 people were killed and 100 were wounded.

The Mutanabbi Street Coalition––made up of poets, writers, artists, booksellers, printers and readers––was formed soon afterwards, in response to not just 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 recognizes the commonality of Mutanabbi Street with any street that leads to a bookstore or cultural institution, in this country or any country.

The coalition’s work benefits Doctors Without Borders, a non-profit agency working to relieve suffering in Iraq and other troubled areas of our globe. If the work of the coalition has moved you, we ask you to please consider a contribution to this fine organization.

The Mutanabbi Street Coalition was founded by San Francisco poet and bookseller Beau Beausoleil. The poets, translators, printers and artists of the coalition have given unselfishly to this project, and many others have given much of their time and talents. The coalition wishes to offer special recognition to Kathleen Walkup, Lisa Rappoport, John DeMerritt Bookbinding, The Key Printing & Binding, Rijin Sahakian, Florida Atlantic University Libraries, Lisa Beth Robinson, and John Cutrone & Seth Thompson.
 

This historic Mutanabbi Street Coalition project––one of only ten in the world––will remain at Florida Atlantic University Libraries, and will be permanently housed at the Arthur & Mata Jaffe Center for Book Arts, 3rd floor east of the Wimberly Library.

Florida Atlantic University Libraries has digitized the full collection of broadsides by the Mutanabbi Street Coalition. This digital collection now has a home on the Internet and may be viewed by people around the globe through the Jaffe Center for Book Arts website or through the FAU Digital Library website:


www.library.fau.edu/depts/digital_library/mutanabbi_index.htm