Last month Molly had the honor of speaking at the ZEE Jaipur Literary Festival in India.She spoke at both The Travel Panel with Carlo Pizzati, Eliza Griswold, Isabella Tree and Ramita Navai, and at speaking event on Brothers of The Gun with William Sieghart.
Tonight, Monday February 11th at 6:30, Molly will be accompanying Deborah Brown, Julia Farrington, Shawné Michaelain Holloway, and Nancy Schwartzman for a panel entitled “Pervasive and Personal: Observations on Free Speech Online” at Theresa Lang Community Center at The New School. Admission is free, but you will need to register online beforehand. Click here for more info and registration details!
“Technology has linked much of the world together, but in its complexity and ubiquity, technology also has deeply personal qualities. It has helped us build relationships and has become a part of our daily lives, something we carry in our pockets wherever we go. This duality of tech and particularly the Internet—its ability to be vast yet intimate—has enabled people to express themselves in unique ways, but also brought with it some serious challenges. Where open channels into each other’s lives exist, the spread of harassment, abuse and vitriol can be equally pervasive and personal.”
“Luchadora” is now available as a limited edition print in the shop, with 20$ from each sale being donated to Taller Salud, a womens health clinic in Loiza, Puerto Rico.
And from now until Valentine’s Day use code BLOODBATH to save 15% on your entire order!
Check out Mollys cover art for the latest book by Warren Ellis, Dead Pig Collector, available now at Subterranean Press.
“Mister Sun sees the world in unusual ways—clocking a flight from London to Los Angeles on business at forty thousand seconds, for instance, instead of in terms of hours. But then, he’s in an unusual line of work. His business is death and disposal. Taking a room at his favorite hotel, he ensures all is in order from his latest client. It seems to be…Until he arrives at the intended target’s home to find a different mess to clean up than he expected.”
“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.”
A lot of very exciting things happened in 2018. After three years of hard and dangerous work, Molly and Marwan published Brothers of The Gun through Penguin Random House in May.
The book has been getting amazing reveiws from around the world, is a New York Times Notable book, and was a semifinalist for the National Book award.
The book tour has taken Molly to speaking events and literary festivals all over the US, and to London, Paris, Istanbul, Delhi and Mumbai. Syria In Ink, an exhibition of the original artwork from the book, opened at the Brooklyn Public Library, with simultaneous exhibits at Amnesty International HQ in London and BANT Havuz in Istanbul. The show is currently on tour.
In a collaboration with Ms Saffaa, Molly installed new murals at The Owls Head wine bar in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn and in Barrio Mariana, Puerto Rico.
And some of her art was even wheatpasted up around NYC
Molly and the lovely folks at Sharp As Knives also release this video about the money bail industry, narrated by John Legend. They also worked on several short films for Equal Justice Initiative’s Legacy Museum.
In Jakarta, Molly collaborated the the Indonesian feminist collectiveHouse of the Unsilencedto do portraits of refugees and women who had had abortions.
Molly spoke at the Chicago Ideas Festival, Tata Literature Live!, the Zee Jaipur literature Festival in Boulder, and will be speaking at the Jaipur Literature Festival in India in January.
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.
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”
“Tara Fares has more honor than the members of Parliament and the Iraqi politicians. Because Tara doesn’t swear at people. Tara doesn’t speak in sectarian language. Tara doesn’t suck the blood of the Iraqi people.”
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.
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.”
This Thursday, October 4th at 7pm Molly will be joining journalist Murtaza Hussain for a discussion about Brothers of the Gun, recently longlisted for the National Book Award. This talk will be one of the many events at Montclair Art Museums ‘Free First Thursday Nights’ series, in addition to a community conversation about artist Kara Walker, docent-led tours of the museum, life drawing sessions, live music, food vendors and a few other exciting events.
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.
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.
“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.”
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.”
Any purchase over $100 from Mollycrabapple.com/shop/ enters you to win a fabulous Mystery swag box, valued at over $1000!
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.”
“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”
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.
The book tour has taken Molly to speaking events and literary festivals 
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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.”
