Molly’s latest piece for the New York Times Book Review was recently published, reviewing the Turkish classic Madonnna In Fur Coat by Sabahattin Ali. 

“To those who knew him, Raid Efendi is a nonentity, a German translator as gray as the Ankara building in which he toils. They never suspect he conceals a secret… the diary of a decades-old romance in Weimar Berlin.

An art school dropout whose shyness isolated him from other people, Raid ends up in Germany in 1923 for the same reasons as did the author Christopher Isherwood, who wrote the novel on which “Cabaret” is based. The Reichsmark is worthless. Foreigners can live cheap. At a gallery, Raif spots the self portrait of a beautiful Jewish woman, Maria Puder- the “Madonna in a Fur Coat”- and falls awkwardly, worshipfully in love.

“I had read enough ideas into that pale face to fill a library” Raif thinks, but Maria is no blank page on which to write the hero’s journey. A painter who sings at a cabaret, she is as blunt as Raif is cowering. To her, men “are the hunters, you see, and we their miserable prey. And our duties? To bow down and obey… but we shouldn’t”

“Madonna in a Fur Coat” is the story of two young people finding themselves in each other while the wold hurtles to ruin.

Published in 1943 by Sabahattin Ali, a writer who is believed to have been murdered by the Turkish State, it shows that the doors to freedom slam shut quickly, but are only opened by courage, nonconformity and love.”

Our shop page now has a bunch of new items, and all print sales made this weekend will come with this free 8.5×11″ mini print!

In addition to the newly added full-size prints, many of which include donations to some amazing non-profits, we’ve also introduced a Mini-print Mystery Box. Are you brave enough to let Molly choose your prints for you? The Mystery Box includes three mini-prints that span different eras of Molly’s career, but you don’t know what you’ll receive until it arrives. This item is only for the bravest art lovers. Get yours here.

Head over to https://mollycrabapple.com/shop/ to see whats new!

Molly will be in Mumbai this week to speak at the ninth annual Mumbai International Literary Festival, AKA Tata Literature Live! Now spanning three different venues across Mumbai, the festival brings together writers and lovers of literature from around the world. Molly will be joining over 100 other writers and speakers for a weekend filed with panels, workshops, and performances.

On November 17th Molly will join Harnidh Kaur, Kalki Koechlin, Richa Kaul Padte and Sunita Wazir for a panel titled “Code of Conduct: The New Rules at Work”

If you happen to be in Mumbai for Diwali, be sure to check out the tons of events going on at Tata Literature Live!

In addition to having been longlisted for the National Book Award, Brothers of the Gun is continuing to receive some wonderful reviews from all over the world. 

The New York Times recently reviewed several illustrated pieces including Brothers of the Gun for an article entitled “Comics of Violence and Nostalgia from War-Torn Syria”. Be sure to take a look and see some more complex and creative opinions about the Syrian war.

Middle East Eye profiled Marwan for this piece, “The road from Raqqa: A Syrian author lives to tell his tale” where he speaks about collaborating with Molly, and the effects the war has had on him saying “War brings out the best and the worst in people. It is indeed a process of extraction. Only in the imponderable calamity of war one learns what he is truly capable of.”

1843, The Economists’ magazine about culture and ideas, featured Brothers of the Gun in it’s book review “Coming of Age in Syria” saying about the risks that were taken to write the book; “The danger and defiance of Hisham’s and Crabapple’s work only adds to the excitement of reading this dazzling, evocative account of innocence and survival.”

Hong Kong Free Press included Brothers of the Gun in its most recent list of “Best Human Rights Books“, saying “Hisham’s story gives as vivid a sense as any of what it has been like to live through it.” If you’re looking for more amazing literature about human rights, this list is definitely worth looking at.

Brothers of The Gun is available now on amazon and through many major booksellers.

Next Monday Molly will be speaking at Chicago Ideas Week. She’ll be joining former Mayor of New Orleans Mitch Landrieu, activist David Hogg and several other esteemed activists and entrepreneurs for a panel entitled “Raising Your Hand: What leadership looks like in 2017.” The panel will take place Monday, October 15th at the Harris Theater in Chicago. Tickets are $15, and there are plenty of other fascinating events throughout the week-long the festival. Get your tickets here.

“As the country faces a dearth of leadership from more traditional sources, “accidental leaders” are stepping up and sparking change, often in unexpected ways. At this Talk, a collection of inspiring forerunners will share their personal narratives, and explain what happened when leadership opportunities were thrust upon them. There is a case to be made that the country is in need of a new generation of people in power who are not afraid to challenge the status quo. At this event, you’ll have the opportunity to hear from four people who are quickly becoming the faces of that generation.”

-Chicago Ideas Week on the “Raising Your Hand” panel 

“There is a myth that, before Israel, Jews did not fight. Even Hannah Arendt, making her controversial claim that Jewish leadership collaborated across the board with Nazis, falls into this error. The Bund, the elected leadership of Europe’s largest Jewish community, fought from the first day of the occupation to the last.”

After a year of research and hard work, this long form article on the history of the Bund, a jewish, armed, socialist, anti-zionist group, and Molly’s great-granfathers involvement within the movement, is finally available. 

“Though the Bund celebrated Jews as a nation, they irreconcilably opposed the establishment of Israel as a separate Jewish homeland in Palestine. The diaspora was home, the Bund argued. Jews could never escape their problems by the dispossession of others. Instead, Bundists adhered to the doctrine of do’ikayt or “Hereness.” Jews had the right to live in freedom and dignity wherever it was they stood.”

Check out the full article here, at the New York Review of Books.

Brothers of the Gun has been longlisted for the most prestigious literary award in America, the National Book Award. Molly and Marwan would like to congratulate their fellow longlisted authors; Dunya Mikhail, Rebecca Solnit, Steve Coll, and Tayari Jones. Thank you to everyone who has bought the book so far, and The National Book Foundation for this incredible honor.

You can read more about the other books on the longlist here.

Molly will be in Jakarta, Indonesia next week to participate in The House of the Unsilenced, an art event “bringing together artists, writers, and sexual assault survivors to create new works about survivors’ life and what it means to speak up.”

“We imagine a safe space and strong support for survivors who want to tell their stories, a place where they can explore various possibilities to express themselves”

– Eliza Vitri Handayani, initiator and director of HOUSE OF THE UNSILENCED

Featuring workshops in visual art, performance, writing and creating through various mediums, survivors will be working with participating artists to create work that speaks about their story, and addressing attitudes about sexual assault around the world. Molly will be there creating work about stigma and the ability to safely access reproductive healthcare. You may remember her powerful article in Vice in 2013, speaking up about her own experience with abortion. 

Also this week Vishwajyoti Ghosh gave a wonderful review of Brothers of the Gun for The Wire. He calls the memoir “The account of a real insider, whose stories come to life with the raw, energetic art of Molly Crabapple…This isn’t just a rare book, but also a real one. ..Brothers of the Gun is a heroic effort to weave the tapestry of a saga still unfinished, and yet to be made sense of.”

Book blog Bouxoul also had high praise for the book, saying “It had all the elements that seduce me into reading – History, War, Politics and a Memoir, and to top it with chocolate cream it had stunning Illustrations by Molly Crabapple”

If you haven’t already gotten your copy, its available through amazon, but you can also support Syrian refugees by buying it through the Karam Foundation. 

“Pretty Things” by Virginie Despentes is now available for pre-order! The latest novel by  Despentes features stunning cover art of Rachel Rabbit White illustrated by Molly Crabapple. 

“It’s pulp in every sense: propulsively readable, violent, sexy, with all the satisfaction of an inevitable ending. And yet it’s also a feminist parable, blunt and unrelenting in its wrath, and it feels as fresh now as it would have ten years ago.” —The Paris Review

You can order your copy now from Feminist Press, and check out some of the other covers Molly has created for Virginie Despentes’s novels, using her friends as models.

Model – Kim Boekbinder

Model – Chelsea G Summers

This week Cengiz Yar interviewed Molly and Marwan on Roadsandkingdoms.com for a discussion about what it was like to write a book while one of them was living in an active war zone. Check it out here!

“If you provide an environment where people can return and rebuild their houses without the fear of bombs or getting arrested, people will not hesitate to return home. The major concern for everyone there is the uncertainty of not knowing who’s going to control the city next.” – Marwan

TheFeministani.com said “This story is enthralling… Crabapple has done something extraordinary with these illustrations” in this review. 

“Brothers of the Gun is the story of that takeover, seen through the eyes of a young man, who along with his friends Nael and Tareq, finds his life turned upside-down by revolution and then war. This is the story of people who attempted to live normal lives, as their homes were being blown to bits around them, as enslaved women were paraded in front of them, as European jihadis invaded their land and established the Islamic State.”

And finally this week, the book got this lovely shoutout in the Times Literary Supplement 

“Molly and Marwan’s collaboration began when the latter was living in ISIS-occupied Raqqa: he would smuggle out photos of the city and Molly would turn them into drawings, exposing the brutal reality of ISIS rule without endangering her source. Marwan joined the uprising against Assad in 2011 when he was a student, and the book tells the story of one of the world’s most protracted conflicts through his eyes.”

Have you gotten your copy of Brothers of the Gun yet? It’s available on Amazon in hardcover and for Kindle!

Blood Money at Lucas Lucas NYC

Opening Receptions: August 10th 7PM, August 11 5-8PM

This intimately interactive art show, hosted by Lucas Lucas (57 Conselyea St BK) features art by Molly Crabapple, Stoya, and many more sex workers and allies. Molly’s portrait of Akynos will be on display, and this six foot tall hyper-detailed painting is best experienced in person. There will be visual art, burlesque performances, exotic dancers, sex worker vendors and much more. The show will up until the 19th, but the real fun will be happening on the 10+11th with an afterparty on the 10th hosted by Domina collective Tailer Group.

This is guaranteed to be a very sexy time where you’ll be able to support sex workers and their art. Hope to see you there!