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).

poster in the Brooklyn Public Library Central Branch lobby

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.

Molly flips through the pages of Brothers of the Gun

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 1: Coming of Age in the Syrian War: Memoir by Journalist Marwan Hisham & Illustrator Molly Crabapple

Part 2: Syrian Journalist: U.S., Russia, Iran and Turkey Helped Destroy Syria, Now They Must Help Fix It

Part 3: Molly Crabapple on Using Art to Expose Injustice from Syria to Guantánamo to Puerto Rico

Molly has a new essay out in 3am Magazine charting the Arabic influences in the formation of Puerto Rico.

There is no victor but God. This calligraphy (copied, unread, from the Nasirids’ Alhambra, brought over, un-comprehended, as decoration for a French restaurant on a hurricane-gutted island) might just be the best epitaph for our age. Who wins, really, in the end?…  Who built the thing that lasts? Or are the winners merely those who find their most cherished mottos repurposed as ornament, in glazes of blue and emerald, glazed over by bored tourists’ eyes?

Full article here.

New article out about Julia de Burgos in today’s New York Review Daily.

Puerto Rico’s most famous poet and greatest literary figure, De Burgos is as significant a cultural icon for the island commonwealth as the artist Frida Kahlo is for Mexico. Every line of De Burgos’s verse is imbued with passion, feminist self-assertion, and love of homeland. As with many female artists, De Burgos’s life story added to her legend, though her romantic life and untimely death threatened to overshadow her work by turning her into an allegorical figure for the patria’s humiliations. Yet, outside of Puerto Rican communities, she is largely unknown despite the fact that her poetry, while firmly rooted in place, addresses the universal human subjects of love, war, and self-creation.

Full article here: http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/04/26/the-fatal-conscience-julia-de-burgos-puerto-ricos-greatest-poet/

Brothers of the Gun as 82 illustrations, the same number as Goya’s Disasters of War

This spring, Molly and Marwan will be touring physically and by video link to meet readers of Brothers of the Gun, the book they created together that One World/Penguin Random House will publish on May 15.

Bookstores hosting events will have specially signed bookplates by Marwan (limited quantities, while they last), and Molly will be signing copies as well–– to order a signed copy, contact the bookstore directly before the event.

Molly has a new article out in the NYRB on the current state of life in Afrin, Syria.

photo- Khalil Ashawi/Reuters

To be a Kurd in Afrin, once a majority Kurdish city, Mohammed says, is now to find oneself a member of a despised group, suspected of disloyalty, and liable to be robbed, beaten, put to flight, or worse. In its seventh year, the Syrian civil war has seen the warring parties and their foreign sponsors foster and exploit ethnic and sectarian divisions in order to realize their strategic ends. The looting and ethnic cleansing of Afrin by Turkish-backed militias is the latest ugly episode of this grim and cynical logic.

Full article here: http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/04/11/how-turkeys-campaign-in-afrin-is-stoking-syrian-hatreds/

Last week Molly returned to Puerto Rico to continue her work speaking to those affected and documenting the rebuilding efforts. She also installed two new wheatpaste murals  just outside of the town of Mariana. 

Portrait of some of the local men playing dominoes.

Cafeteria workers

We’re excited to share the first few of what we hope will be many positive reviews come in this week for Brothers of the Gun. Book officially drops May 15th. Stay tuned here for a tour schedule

Syrian refugees hiding from Turkish border guards near Afrin, northern Syria, June 2015

NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS:

Their initial pieces were published in Vanity Fair. It was, as he puts it, an “art crime” for which he would probably have been executed had he been discovered by ISIS. A body hanging from a lamppost, a small child with an enormous rifle, people running down a rubble-strewn street—such images rendered beautiful by the pen are disturbing. Crabapple used vibrant, sometimes lurid color in the original magazine pieces, but the black-and-white illustrations in the book, carefully blotched and smudged, invite more thought, not least the cover illustration of a violinist playing an instrument that, on closer inspection, turns out to be a Kalashnikov.  -Lindsey Hilsum, NYRB 4/19/18

Full review here.

BOOKLIST:

Along with Crabapple’s haunting images, the author’s words offer both an elegy for what has been lost and an angry plea for all that remains. This is memoir at its most powerful, ensuring that we cannot forget lives we never knew.— Colleen Mondor

Full review here.

KIRKUS

As he recounts the events leading to the increasing repression on the part of the Assad regime and the eventual descent of Syria into civil conflict, Hisham writes with a wryly observant eye for telling remarks. If the customary cry of faithful warriors was that God is great, then the quietly subversive retort of a Raqqawi graffiti artist makes for a fine rejoinder: “Tomorrow is better.” Tomorrow is a rare commodity in Hisham’s fast-moving account, which is enhanced by Crabapple’s powerful ink drawings.

Full review here.

psssstt: have we convinced you yet that the book is absolutely amazing!? It really is an incredible read filled with gorgeous art. You can already pre-order your copy at your local bookstore or amazon or b&n.

Molly has joined twelve other artists in collaborating with the art collective INDECLINE to do an art installation and performance piece in Trump Tower NYC. INDECLINE came to notoriety in late 2016 after installing nude and excruciatingly anatomically accurate statues of Trump in cities across America.

Their statement about this exhibit:

On March 29th, #INDECLINE checked into a suite at the Trump International Hotel in New York City. Over the course of 24 hours, the collective clandestinely erected an unauthorized, large-scale art installation entitled, “The People’s Prison”. In addition to the installation, 13 American artists were chosen to paint portraits on American Flags, each one representing a different iconic freedom fighter or activist. Select media outlets were invited to attend and report on the private unveiling. This project celebrates America’s long and vibrant history of political activism, poetic dissidence and radical thinking and serves as a call to all artists to engage in direct action against President Trump, his administration and their fanatical followers. The installation will be recreated at Gallery 30 South in Pasade

 

Art Newspaper Article on the staging: https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/art-collective-shackles-trump-in-trump-hotel-in-new-york

edit: Art Forum Article: https://www.artforum.com/news/art-collective-erects-anti-trump-installation-inside-his-new-york-hotel-74861

Next Friday (March 16th) Molly will be helping kick off the Girls Write Now 20th Anniversary Spring Celebration and the beginning of their 2018 CHAPTERS reading series with a reading from Drawing Blood. The reading will be held at the New York Historical Society and goes from 6-8pm. Tickets are by suggested donation here.

About Girls Write Now:

Girls Write Now mentors underserved high school girls from throughout New York City’s five boroughs — over 90% high need and 95% girls of color — who must rise above the race and income-based inequalities of the city’s public school system and the nation’s workforce. Through one-to-one mentoring with professional women writers and media makers, writing and technology workshops, and leadership, college prep, and professional development opportunities, we inspire women to share their craft and empower girls to find their voices and tell their stories.

If you are in NYC please consider stopping by, saying hi, and helping support this great program. 

More info on Girls Write Now is available on their website: https://www.girlswritenow.org/who-we-are/our-story/

From now until April 9th Farmingdale University in New York is presenting Sribing Reality, a retrospective of Molly’s reportage work from the past five years. Below are some shots of the installation. If you live near or  you’re going to be visiting the NYC area sometime soon please considering taking some time to go out and see it.

More info here: http://www.farmingdale.edu/business/viscom/mollycrabapple.shtml

We’re retiring a bunch of prints from the store to make space for some upcoming secret and exciting changes. 

All of the prints featured in the image above and more will be gone Midnight Monday 1/29.   So check out this special section of the shop to see which ones are on their way out.

This Friday January 26th, Art in Ad Places will be celebrating the launch of their book compilation of last year’s campaign. 

Please join us at the LUCAS LUCAS Gallery in Brooklyn starting at 7pm.
57 Conselyea Street, Brooklyn, New York 11211

More info at the facebook event page here.

Molly’s work will be featured in the book and copies will be available for purchase right in the gallery space.

Fireside Fiction presents, Thunderstorm in Glasgow. A Poem by Amal El-Mohtar with Illustrations by Molly

 
Rattle my heart, four-chambered sound
loosen my language from my teeth
tumble raaed out from a fallow throat
and a forgotten year
when hunched in barracks beneath the rain
that gushed from gutters, corrugated roofs
one sister clutched her mother’s hand
and one strained, strained against her grip
wanting the wet, the loud, the dark, the bright,
to shake hands with that searing flash
and make it her friend.

Full piece here: https://firesidefiction.com/thunderstorm-in-glasgow-july-25-2013

During Molly’s most recent trip to Puerto Rico’s Mariana neighborhood to document the ongoing recovery process from Hurricane Maria, she installed three new wheatpaste murals.

Kevin and Louisa Capitilo

Three men from the neighborhood playing dominos.

These join her earlier mural portrait of  Julia de Burgos

The next entry in Molly’s Puerto Rico Sketchbook series with the Paris review is up.  This entry in the series focuses on the small artist collective AgitArt. 

Casa Taller was just the sort of iconic, authentic DIY arts space that gentrification had smothered in New York City. Like all of San Juan, its power was off, but it had a luxurious layout—a small garden, wide white rooms filled with papier-mâché masks, Punch-and-Judy-inspired prints on the walls, battered couches on which one could peruse its small collection of books, and teetering piles of manikin heads, arms, alligator maws. 

Full article here: https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/01/10/puerto-rico-sketchbook/

On this episode, Crabapple explains how her experiences with Occupy transformed her career, leading her to cover life at Guantánamo Bay, Syria’s civil war, architecture in the West Bank, and beyond. -VICE

Listen to the podcast here: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/3k5pvv/vice-meets-molly-crabapple-podcast

Following the success of a special promotion this past September, Molly is offering, for a limited time, to provide copies of Drawing Blood with unique hand-drawn illustrations on the title pages. Below are some examples of past ones we sent out. 

Order copies here while they last!

-Posted by AC the assistant

The next entry in Molly’s Puerto Rico Sketchbook series with the Paris review is up.  This entry in the series focuses on the large elderly population on the island: “The wrecked economy and closed schools have forced countless younger people to the mainland, but the older men and women stay.”

In many cases, after Maria, it was the Puerto Rican elders who saved their neighbors and rebuilt their barrios. When the bridge collapsed at Utuado, it was men in their sixties who waded through the waters and strung a wire across the river. For over two months, a shopping cart slid back and forth along that wire to deliver food to the people still in the barrio. 

Full article here: https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/01/03/puerto-rico-sketchbook-elders-island/