Busboys and Poets, Split This Rock, George Mason University, School of Art and Corcoran School of Art + Design Present:
Al Mutanabbi Street Starts Here: Commemorative Readings
Wednesday, March 5, 2014 / 6-830 PM.
Busboys and Poets
14th and V Streets
Washington, DC
Free and Open to the Public
Light Refreshments provided by Busboys and Poets
Featuring Readings by:
- Zein El-Amine
- Sarah Browning
- Elana Casey
- Mariam Coker
- Elliott Colla
- E. Ethelbert Miller
- Nahid Navab
- Casey Smith
- Susan Tichy
About the Al Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Project:
On March 5, 2007, a car bomb exploded on al-Mutanabbi Street in Baghdad. More than 30 people were killed and more than 100 were wounded. Al-Mutanabbi Street, the historic center of Baghdad bookselling, holds bookstores and outdoor bookstalls, cafes, stationary shops, and even tea and tobacco shops. It has been the heart and soul of the Baghdad literary and intellectual community.
This project seeks to show where al-Mutanabbi Street starts in all of us: personally, in our communities, and in our nations. It seeks to show the commonality between this small street in Baghdad and our own cultural centers, and why this attack was an attack on us all. This project sees al-Mutanabbi Street as a place for the free exchange of ideas; a place that has long offered its sanctuary to the complete spectrum of Iraqi voices. This is where the roots of democracy (in the best sense of the word) took hold hundreds of years ago. This project looks toward al-Mutanabbi Street as an affirmation of all that we hope for in a more just society.
—Beau Beausoleil, founder, Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Project