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Thanks for taking the time to visit the Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition JustGiving page.
On March 5th 2007, a car bomb was exploded on al-Mutanabbi Street in Baghdad. Al-Mutanabbi Street is in a mixed Shia-Sunni area. More than 30 people were killed and more than 100 were wounded. Al-Mutanabbi Street, the historic centre of Baghdad bookselling, holds bookstores and outdoor bookstalls, cafes, stationery shops, and even tea and tobacco shops. It has been the heart and soul of the Baghdad literary and intellectual community.
The al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition has been organising readings and other events since April 2007 to fundraise for Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).
The Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition has sent out calls to poets, writers, artists, letterpress printers around the world to create prints, broadsides and artists' books for the project to “re-assemble” some of the “inventory” of the reading material that was lost in the car bombing of al-Mutanabbi Street on 5th March 2007, and to create work that holds both “memory and future,” exactly what was lost that day.
To see some of the artworks made for the project visit: http://www.bookarts.uwe.ac.uk/projects/al-mutanabbi-street.html
Exhibitions, talks, panel discussions and readings are held around the world to make visible the literary bridge that connects us, made of words and images that move back and forth between the readers in Iraq and ourselves.
This page can be used to donate funds to MSF from any of our readings and events in Europe, or to make a donation in support of MSF's work from al-Mutanabbi Street supporters. Through the international arm of the project, the anthology and events, over 8500 dollars has been donated to MSF. This page is being used for donations from readings in Europe.
For updates of readings and events including the Mach 2017 events that took place to mark the 10-year anniversary, visit: https://markerofwitness.wordpress.com
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Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here.