THE IRAQI BOOKSELLER

7 3/4 x 5 11/16 inches
opens to 15 x 22 inches.
20 copies. 

Letterpress printed in red, black, and green inks with timeworn wood types and Univers foundry type on Rives BFK. Designed and printed by Laurie Szujewska, Ensatina Press. Price provided upon request.

The book, The Iraqi Bookseller, was created as a follow-up to a broadside I created for the Mutannabbi Street Broadside Project in 2007. Both were inspired by an article written by Anthony Shadid for the Washington Post Foreign Service on March 12, 2007, entitled “The Bookseller’s Story Ending Much Too Soon.” Shadid’s story is a personal account of the Mutannabi Street bombing told through a reminiscence of his friendship with Mohammed Hayawi, a bookseller on the street, which has served as the heart of Bagdad’s intelligentsia for centuries.

The book features the quote from Mohammed Hayawi used in the original broadside—“I challenge anyone to say, what has happened, what is happening now and what will happen in the future”—in the context of an excerpt from Shadid’s article about Hayawi.

It is intended to be both a remembrance of Hayawi and a tribute to Shadid’s poignant story of his friend. Sadly, as I was finishing the printing of the book, Anthony Shadid died on February 13, 2012, while in Syrian covering the uprising there.

I offer this small book as a homage to Shadid, and to the bravery he and other journalists have exhibited offering witness to the often violent unfolding of the Arab Spring, and the stories they have written celebrating the lives and struggles of the men and women there seeking freedom.

Three views of The Iraqi Bookseller, 2012.