Freedom is in the air

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. "Love is in the air. I am thinking of Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Egypt, Afghanistan ... But freedom even begins just when I'm out in nature, watching animals, listening to their sounds, and to the wind ... and in the air, there are my ideas, and I try to catch them, and 'fix them' in to these artists' books for Al-Mutanabbi Street. May there always be freedom for books in the world!"--Artist's statement from the Book Arts at the Centre for Fine Print Research, UK website.