[William Blake

"The burnt books are a homage to the books burnt and damaged by the bombings in al-Mutanabbi street. I imagine myself there finding half-burned books, and after the horror, reading extraordinary fragments of texts. My acts of book burning are inverted demonstrations against censorship and cultural cleansing"--The Centre for Fine Print Research book arts website. 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.