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.
By Molly Crabapple and Marwan Hisham
The province of Idlib is the last rebel-held area in Syria. They’re currently bracing for the impending regime invasion that is expected to cause mass destruction and civilian casualties. Molly and Marwan spoke to three citizens of Idlib who described the fear they live in for the New York Times.
Read the full article and see all of Molly’s illustrations here
“We fall asleep to the roar of fighter planes. We wake up to the same sound in fear. It is very difficult to worry all the time about my children. Everyone is talking about the offensive. We are going to flee and become homeless. If we stay, the regime is going to arrest my sons, if only because they have been dodging the draft for years.”
“We have been living here for years with aerial bombing, but now, if the regime advances, there is no other option for me but crossing into Turkey. I have to save my family. All we want is to stay in our homes and live our lives.”
“We fear nobody would be spared in Idlib.”
If you’re interested in another great collaboration between Molly and Marwan, their book “Brothers of The Gun: A Memoir of the Syrian War” is available now.
This July Molly travelled to the Rio Grande Valley to cover the Texas border crisis for Rolling Stone Magazine. Her article appears in this months issue, as well as on the website which features an extended gallery of illustrations and video interview. She attended immigration court proceedings, visited detention centers, and spoke with families seeking asylum about the inhumane treatment they and their children endured while being detained by ICE.
“They humiliate us,” a mother from Honduras told me at the McAllen bus station, where hopeful but exhausted migrants go after their often-traumatic initiation into the U.S. immigration system. “With sticks, they beat the metal bars to wake us up. If the children cry, they go after us. There was a child with a fever. They bathed him in cold water and let him lie naked on the floor except for his underwear. The mother was crying because the child is crying. She wants to cover him, but guards tell her she can’t.”
Almost all of the 80 or so defendants in court pleaded guilty. The process took about a minute each. Many of them had crossed into America repeatedly, to work in the fields or in construction, but most of all to be with their U.S.-citizen spouses and children. Prosecutors argued the multiple crossings were the actions of career criminals, who could only be corrected with incarceration.
One woman sat on the floor quietly crying. Poverty had forced her to leave her two sons behind in Honduras, and one had died in her absence. Another mother sat nervously rubbing coins together between her fingers. She left Guatemala with her six-year-old son after her father threatened to hack the family to death with a machete. She told me that most people in custody with her had signed forms in English that they were unable to read, in hopes of being let out of the crowded hielera: “‘What if I never sign, and I’m never let out,’ I thought. I think almost everyone signed. No one knew what those documents said.”
Get the full story and slideshow here, or pick up a copy of Rolling Stone this month.
The Mystery Box has books, T-shirts, stickers, autographed rare and retired prints, and many more surprises. A winner will be chosen at random on September 7th and they’ll be sent a brand new collection of artwork and apparel thats no longer available on Mollycrabapple.com, or anywhere else. Shipping on the Mystery Box is complimentary, but this offer is only available to residents of the continental US.
So if you’ve been considering making a purchase from the shop, now is the time. You could end up new collection of artwork, and much more!
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.”
– 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.
This week The Cairo Review of Global Affairs described Brothers of the Gun as “an indispensable read that features how ordinary youths change, adapt, and resist, in different forms, in the face of unceasing injustices”. And “a story of hope, fear, devastation, uncertainty, and bravery told through a concise and personal narrative. It is an essential read for anyone who seeks to understand what Raqqa has endured”.
Former US Marine Dewaine Farrina reviewed Brothers of the Gun for The Mantle .He gave an eloquent description of his time in Syria, before and after Arab Spring, and his impressions of the book. Describing Molly as “one of the most influential visual artists of our time” and saying that “(Marwan) demonstrates courage in every sense of the word”. Check out his wonderful piece Sea Stories and Memoirs: A Review of Brothers of the Gun.
There’s also a new way to buy Brothers of the Gun that directly helps Syrians in need…
The Karam Foundation is a non-profit that began in Chicago in 2007 that provides aid to Syrian refugees. They create education and entrepreneurial opportunities, as well as give direct emergency assistance to recently relocated Syrians. You may remember them from the murals Molly painted at Karam House and in schools in Reyhanli, Turkey in 2015.
Right now you can buy your copy of Brothers of the Gun directly from the Karam Foundation where proceeds will benefit Syrians in need. While you’re there check out some of the other amazing books about Syria that they carry. Or pick up a set of the “Innovative Leaders” series of greeting cards, illustrated by Molly!
Visit KaramFoundation.org to learn more about the incredible work they do.
“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
City Council member Jumaane Williams was convicted today and sentenced to time served for obstructing emergency services. Williams was arrested for blocking an ambulance that was deporting New Sanctuary leader and immigrants rights activist Ravi Ragbir. He is running for Lieutenant Govorner alongside Cynthia Nixon, and was one of 17 demonstrators arrested while protesting Ravi’s deportation by ICE.
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!
Brothers of the Gun is continuing to get a lot of really wonderful press coverage this week:
This weeks episode of the Laura Flanders Show, Telling the Stories of the Syrian War, features an interview with Molly and Marwan Hisham discussing the book, the war in Syria, and their collaboration.
Molly and Hisham sat down for a video interview with the Aljeezera show The Stream to discuss the risks that were taken to write Brothers of the Gun, and tell some of the fascinating stories behind Molly’s illustrations.
“-a story told through the eyes of, not the power brokers or military leaders, but of those caught up in it, those who it began to happen around as they went about their lives.”
The Activist Files Episode 4: Molly Crabapple doesn’t stay in boxes
The Activist Files podcast featured this interview with Molly on Episode 4,
“We talk about the intersection of art and activism, collaborations she’s undertaken in support of movements and communities impacted by war and government abuses, and what keeps her grounded, despite the online haters.”
The Columbia Journalism Review featured this amazing review of the Brothers of the Gun,
“Hisham’s detailed anecdotes of jihadists chatting about their daily lives in a modern day insurgency would be difficult to recreate through anything other than first-hand testimony. Without his observations and his writing, such conversations would have otherwise been forgotten. By meticulously researching and cross-referencing her illustrations, Crabapple bends the rules of traditional visual journalism and pieces together Hisham’s memories to recreate scenes of Yezidi women in a cafe in Raqqa, and a young man being pulled from the rubble after a US airstrike—both of which would have been impossible for a traditional war photographer to capture.”
Read the full review here:
“Graphic memoir illustrates new frontier in ISIS coverage“- Columbia Journalism Review
And finally, The Intercept published this piece featuring Brothers of the Gun along with Kassem Eid’s memoir “My Country“,
“Our Country, Our Stories: In New Memoirs Syrians Describe Life -and Death- in Wartime”
“Eid’s and Hisham’s revelatory memoirs come at a critical moment, as everyday Syrians are increasingly written out of their country’s story.”
Molly has written and illustrated a new article for The Baffler about Puerto Rican political prisoner Nina Droz Franco, who was arrested in the 2017 May Day protests. This article is part of Issue 40 of The Baffler entitled “Forced Exposure” which is focusing on privacy and surveillance.
Droz has spent the last year in federal prison, waiting to receive her sentence. Outside, while the island combats the overlapping cruelties of fiscal austerity and post-Maria neglect, players on each end of the political spectrum have adopted Droz as a symbol. To many pro-independence leftists who supported the protests, she is a political prisoner. For the pro-statehood right, she is a folk demon, half-witch and half-terrorist: “The Girl Who Breathes Fire.”
Check out Molly’s full article here: “Trial by Fire – Molly Crabapple”
Or read all the articles featured in Issue 40
Tonight (June 29th), Molly’s original paintings of life in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria will be on view at the Clemente Abrazo Interno Gallery at 107 Suffolk Street in New York. The show accompanies a book anthology of art and writing on contemporary activism, in which Molly’s work is also included. The opening reception starts at 7pm and will go until 10pm.
Join us Friday, June 29th, 7-10pm for the opening reception of When We Fight, We Win! / ¡Cuando Luchamos, Ganamos! The night’s program will include brief comments from the curatorial team and When We Fight, We Win! authors, as well as performances by AgitArte | Papel Machete and the inaugural presentation of the End the Debt! Decolonize! Liberate! Movement Unity Scroll.
The When We Fight, We Win! / ¡Cuando Luchamos, Ganamos! exhibition features over 40 artists, cultural organizers and artist collectives whose work bolsters people’s movements and builds solidarity across place, culture and struggle.
The opening reception will serve as the culminating event of the year-long When We Fight, We Win! Arts & Culture Tour and a celebration of AgitArte’s 20th anniversary. We hope you’ll help us celebrate this project and our victories in struggle.
Únanse a nosotrxs el viernes 29 de junio, de 7 a 10 pm para la apertura de When We Fight, We Win! / ¡Cuando Luchamos, Ganamos! El programa de la noche incluirá comentarios breves del equipo curatorial y lxs autorxs de When We Fight, We Win!, así como presentaciones de AgitArte | Papel Machete y el estreno de End the Debt! Descolonize! Liberate! Movement Unity Scroll.
La exposición When We Fight, We Win! / ¡Cuando Luchamos, Ganamos! presenta a más de 40 artistas, organizadorxs culturales y colectivos de artistas cuyo trabajo refuerza los movimientos populares y crea solidaridad a través de lugares, culturas y luchas.
La apertura de la exposición será el evento culminante de la Jornada de Arte y Cultura de When We Fight, We Win! Esperamos que nos apoyen a celebrar este proyecto y nuestras victorias en la lucha.
Molly will be participating in this year’s Logan Symposium in London during October 19th and 20th.
Conspiracy! is about the growing machinery of surveillance and censorship, and what might be our response to it. Then there’s official propaganda and subterfuge. From paid Russian Trolls toiling to Western-funded “media activists” in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, what are the chances for real freedom and democracy when the new media machinery becomes a powerful new weapon of war? The proposed new Espionage Act in the UK, and the renewed threat of prosecutions under the 1917 Espionage Act in the US, deliberately blur the distinction between information-seeking investigative journalists and spies from a hostile state.
More info at their site: https://tcij.org/conspiracy
Molly has a new Sketchbook article published in the Paris Review about her experience at a recent presentation by New York’s 12th congressional district representative Saraj Patel regarding striking down SESTA and FOSTA
“As crises so often do, SESTA and FOSTA provoked unprecedented activism: art shows, protests, performances, fund-raisers. There was powerful, beautiful work that made me proud to belong to this harlot mafia. (I had too many friends of too many years in that room, friends who I’ve drank with till too many bleary dawns, to fake some sterile sort of distance.)”
Full article here: https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/06/20/sketchbook-the-first-sex-worker-town-hall/
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In the final stop on her U.S. tour, Molly will be in Boston to speak about Brothers of the Gun, in conversation with journalist Jonathan Guyer at Harvard Bookstore. More info on the Harvard Bookstore website and RSVP on Facebook.
Harvard Bookstore is located at 1256 Massachusetts Ave. in Cambridge MA
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Summer of Know is a conversation series pairing contemporary artists with practitioners and thought leaders at the forefront of today’s most urgent social, political, environmental, and legal issues. Held in The Wright restaurant, these informal discussions are moderated or introduced by Guggenheim curators and engage with current issues as they are filtered through the generative lens of art.
Molly and writer Anand Giridharadas will be in conversation, speaking about the nature of journalism as activism in the age of Trump. The session will moderated by Nancy Spector, Artistic Director and Jennifer and David Stockman Chief Curator at the Guggenheim Museum. The event is free for museum members and students, and $10 for guests but the price of the event may be deducted from cost of admission to the museum. More details about the event are available here on the Guggenheim website.
The Guggenheim is located on the upper east side of Manhattan at 1071 5th ave.
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In partnership with Amnesty International UK, Molly and Marwan – appearing by video link, will be joined in conversation with journalist Paul Mason. The event will be held at the Human Rights Action Center at 17-25 New Inn Yard, starting at 18:30. RSVP is highly encouraged as seats are filling up fast.
Molly will return to the venerable Shakespeare & Co. on May 31st at 7:00 pm to speak about Brothers of the Gun with Marwan who will be joining in by video link. RSVPs are highly encouraged. Shakespeare & Co. is located at 37 Rue de la Bûcherie right off the Seine.
Bant Magazine has put together an exhibition of Molly’s ink illustrations that will be on display in their Bant Mag Havuz/Bina at Caferaga mah. Kadife sok. 26 Kadıköy until June 15th. On June 3rd at 17:00 Molly and Marwan will talk about Brothers of the Gun together in person (for the first time during the tour). The presentation will be followed by an open Q&A. RSVP encouraged.
In the Pacific Northwest? Molly is talking with Lidia Yuknavitch (The Book of Joan, The Misfit’s Manifesto) Sunday at Powell’s at 7:30pm, and the event tops The Portland Mercury’s list of ways to enjoy the arts this week.
Monday night, Molly will be in Seattle in conversation with co-author Marwan Hisham, who will join by video conference at the legendary Elliott Bay Book Company at 7pm. The Seattle Review of Books asked Molly what she’s currently reading.
Thursday, back in New York, Molly will be in conversation with Alexis Okeowo, winner of the 2018 PEN Open Book Award for A Moonless, Starless Sky: Ordinary Women and Men Fighting Extremism in Africa, at the Strand, as part of PEN’s Out Loud event series, at 7:00pm. Admission details are here.
On Friday, May 25, Molly will be in DC, in conversation with Latoya Peterson, deputy editor at ESPN’s The Undefeated, at East City Book Shop at 7:30pm, and details are here.
For details on upcoming London, Paris, and Boston appearances, click here, and all tour bookstores have signed copies in stock.
A few great clips from this week’s launch in the U.S. that we’d like to share with you:
- Molly Crabapple on Using Art to Expose Injustice from Syria to Guantánamo to Puerto Rico [Democracy Now]
- A Searing Memoir Recalls How Syria’s Civil War Tore Apart Three Friends [Mother Jones]
- 15 Books You Should Read This May: Memoirs, Mothers, Crumbling Empires, and More [Literary Hub]
“Syria in Ink” an exhibition of art from Brothers of the Gun is on exhibition at the Brooklyn Public Library until June 30.
Need a copy of the book? Order a signed copy from a tour bookstore, or click here
We are honored to announce that Molly’s second book, a collaboration with Syrian author and journalist Marwan Hisham is out today, May 15th. You can order copies here or from amazon or your local bookstore or anywhere books are sold.
On Tuesday we’re joining forces with the Brooklyn Public Library to celebrate the release of Brothers of the Gun, and the start of their corresponding show, ‘Syria In Ink‘ an exhibition of the paintings from the book. This will also be the start of Molly’s book tour for Brothers of the Gun which will have her visiting LA, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, New York, Washington DC, London, Paris, and Boston. (Full details here).
The event and installation will be at the Brooklyn Public Library Central Branch at 10 Grand Army Plaza.
We will start he evening at 7:30 pm with an Author Talk. Molly will be joined in conversation by the renowned and poet, novelist, translator and scholar Sinan Antoon. They will speak about the subjects covered in Brothers of the Gun and the process behind its creation.
An audio tour will also be available to visitors that presents author Marwan Hisham’s stories behind the images and in his own voice.
Syria In Ink will be on display in the Brooklyn Public Library through June 30th
Democracy Now interviewed Molly and Marwan in regards to Brothers of the Gun (out this Tuesday May 15th).
The interview is in three parts:
Part 3: Molly Crabapple on Using Art to Expose Injustice from Syria to Guantánamo to Puerto Rico
Order your copy today:
indiebound | amazon | barnes and noble
