Deema K. Shehabi is a Palestinian-American poet, writer, and editor. She is the author of Thirteen Departures from the Moon. Her work has appeared widely in various anthologies and literary journals including Kenyon Review, Literary Imagination, Crab Orchard, Drunken Boat, New Letters, Poetry London, DMQ Review, Inclined to Speak: Contemporary Arab-American Poetry and The Poetry of Arab Women. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart prize four times, and it has been translated into Arabic, Farsi, and French. She served as Vice-President for RAWI (the Radius of Arab-American Writers, Inc).
Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here: Poets and Writers Respond to the March 5th, 2007, Bombing of Baghdad’s “Street of the Booksellers”
SKU: 9781604865905
Editors: Beau Beausoleil and Deema Shehabi
Publisher: PM Press
ISBN: 9781604865905
Published: 8/2012
Format: Paperback, mobi, ePub, PDF
Size: 6 x 9
Page count: 320
Subjects: Cultural Studies/Current Events/Poetry
Praise
“This anthology celebrates the exquisite relationship between the
book and the reader, humanity and culture, writing and life and love. It
is a tribute to a street that grows into a large and archetypal symbol
and spatial metaphor for books.”
—Muhsin al-Musawi, professor of Arabic and Comparative Studies at Columbia University and editor of the Journal of Arabic Literature
“The collection of materials in this anthology is astounding and
harrowing. Beausoleil and Shehabi have put together a book that will be
adored by lovers of poetry, essays, journalism, and testimony. It will
also be required reading for anyone interested in social justice.”
—Steven Salaita, associate professor of English, Virginia Tech University
“Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here has brought together a
stellar group of authors to write about a time and place: the
destruction of Baghdad’s famed al-Mutanabbi Street, when on March 5,
2007, the cultural spaces of bookstores, libraries, and cafes frequented
for centuries by the Iraqi literary community were bombed. This is a
wonderful and exceptionally moving anthology and a compelling collection
of poetic and historical merit.”
—Susan Slyomovics, professor of anthropology and Near Eastern languages, UCLA
“Propaganda reigns when there are no natural alliances of
self-defense, when image-makers — poets, novelists, journalists,
filmmakers, photographers, and artists—have no personal relationships
with their counterparts across zones of conflict. Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here
steps directly into this vacuum, holding the mirror of resistance
directly to our acquiescent eyes, reminding us that before the invasion
of Iraq there were sanctions, that before the sanctions there was Saddam
Hussein, part of an elaborate web of U.S. supported and inspired
totalitarianism that has kept the peoples of the Middle East in a
stranglehold for a good part of the 20th century. This extraordinary
collection asks us to account for our lack of resistance, and to begin
learning just what it might mean to resist.”
—Ammiel Alcalay, chair of Classical, Middle Eastern and Asian Languages and Cultures at Queens College
Book Events
april, 2024
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Reviews
- Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here reviewed on Jadaliyya
- Baghdad’s ‘Street of the Booksellers’ honoured at Manchester’s John Rylands library
- Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here in World Literature Today
- Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here in European Journal of The English Studies
Interviews
Mentions
- Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here in the Huffington Post
- Baghdad’s ‘Street of the Booksellers’ is reborn in Manchester