Absence & Presence, a printmaking, book, & poetry project

etching, 8" x 10"

When Stephanie Mahan Stigliano invited me to make a print about the March 5, 2007 bombing of the bookseller’s district in Iraq, I immediately thought of my friend Dr. Fawzi Abdulrazak, who owns a private book store in Cambridge MA. He is a leading scholar who wrote, “The Kingdom of the Book: The history of Printing in Morocco” and “The Fez Lithographs, Annotated Bibliography with Historical Introduction”. I asked Fawzi if I could draw a portrait of him and if he remembered Al-Mutanabbi Street and with an enthusiastic “Yes”,  he agreed to meet me at his store. I arrived with my camera and he was mysteriously waiting with a flash light in the darkened storefront at 600 Cambridge Street.  I took many photographs as he showed me some historic and beautiful books. He talked of his memories and described the vistas of Al-Mutanabbi Steet.  As a young man he would visit and talk with many writers.  Latter in his store room he showed his journal from those early days.  The etching is a portrait of Fwazi holding the journal of poems he wrote as a young man. 

Al Mutanabbi Starts Here, a book, poetry, & printmaking project