The song lives on

This collection supports and promotes awareness to the important mission and framework of the Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Coalition's focus on the lasting power of the written word and the arts in support of the free expression of ideas, the preservation of shared cultural spaces, and the importance of responding to attacks, both overt and subtle, on artists, writers, and academics working under oppressive regimes or in zones of conflict, despite the destruction of that literary/cultural content. "Contained in my three books is a song that continues to live on even though the original singers have been silenced. Varying slightly in each of the three books, the text of the song is approximately 100 words in constant mutation, that must change slightly, sometimes by just one word, every time the song is written down or sung. I started writing the text in 1995, on hearing of the execution in Nigeria of the writer Ken Saro Wiva. As the project grew, it became more generally about the issue of freedom of speech. The first 100 versions of the text were originally published as Liver & Lights no 23. 100 Books in 1999. As long as there are oppressors and innocent victims, this song will continue to be written and sung, metamorphosing eternally out of the reach of tyrannical censors"--Artist's statement from the Book Arts at the Centre for Fine Print Research, UK website.