Molly Crabapple

________________'This anthology will help turn your intellectual understanding of oppression into an emotional one' - New Statesman'Thanks for being who you are and for giving us such exposure to wonderful people. Palestine is proud of you' - Suad Amiry________________The Palestine Festival of Literature was established in 2008. Bringing together writers from all corners of the globe, it aims to help Palestinians break the cultural siege imposed by the Israeli military occupation, to strengthen their artistic links with the rest of the world, and to reaffirm, in the words of Edward Said, ‘the power of culture over the culture of power’.Celebrating the tenth anniversary of PalFest, This Is Not a Border is a collection of essays, poems and stories from some of the world’s most distinguished artists, responding to their experiences at this unique festival. Both heartbreaking and hopeful, their gathered work is a testament to the power of literature to promote solidarity and courage in the most desperate of situations.Contributors: Susan Abulhawa, Suad Amiry, Victoria Brittain, Jehan Bseiso, Teju Cole, Molly Crabapple, Selma Dabbagh, Mahmoud Darwish, Najwan Darwish, Geoff Dyer, Yasmin El-Rifae, Adam Foulds, Ru Freeman, Omar Robert Hamilton, Suheir Hammad, Nathalie Handal, Mohammed Hanif, Jeremy Harding, Rachel Holmes, John Horner, Remi Kanazi, Brigid Keenan, Mercedes Kemp, Omar El-Khairy, Nancy Kricorian, Sabrina Mahfouz, Jamal Mahjoub, Henning Mankell, Claire Messud, China Miéville, Pankaj Mishra, Deborah Moggach, Muiz, Maath Musleh, Michael Palin, Ed Pavlic, Atef Abu Saif, Kamila Shamsie, Raja Shehadeh, Gillian Slovo, Ahdaf Soueif, Linda Spalding, Will Sutcliffe, Alice WalkerWith messages from China Achebe, Michael Ondaatje and J. M. Coetzee________________'Every literary act, whether it is a great epic poem or an honest piece of journalism or a simple nonsense tale for children is a blow against the forces of stupidity and ignorance and darkness … The Palestine Festival of Literature exists to do just that – and I salute it for its work. Not only this year but for as long as it is necessary' - Philip Pullman

A vivid, human and radical history of one of the most powerful revolutionary movements of the twentieth century - told through the lives and in the voices of countless forgotten men and women **THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER** 'Lush, high-tempo, strikingly poignant ... The relevance for our present moment is impossible to ignore' Guardian 'Thrillingly energetic, delightful, vivid' New York Times Book Review 'Reading it feels revolutionary' Naomi Klein Here Where Live Is Our Country is the story of a revolutionary movement - the Jewish Bund - which played a part in nearly every major conflict in Eastern Europe from 1900-1945, but still remains an almost unknown part of twentieth-century history. The movement's central philosophy of "herenes" - the belief that Jews had a right to freedom and dignity in the countries where they lived - led them to fight the Tsar, reject Zionism, resist the Nazis, and ultimately help lead the Warsaw ghetto revolt. It is also a philosophy that immediately resonates with the political situation all over the world today. In this book, Molly Crabapple tells the story of the Bund through the lives of the bold and brilliant individuals who were pivotal to carrying out the doctrine, including her own great-grandfather, through whom she first discovered the movement. 'Crabapple, with this great work, adds to her growing legacy as a unique American genius' Jason Stanley 'Recounts, with a novelist's mastery of detail, one of the most extraordinary rebellions of the human spirit in modern history' Pankaj Mishra 'A masterful storyteller who possesses an admirable sense of history and writes with verve and wit ... Here Where We Live Is Our Country is a true tour de force' Jon Lee Anderson

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK - LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD - A bracingly immediate memoir by a young man coming of age during the Syrian war, an intimate lens on the century's bloodiest conflict, and a profound meditation on kinship, home, and freedom. "This powerful memoir, illuminated with Molly Crabapple's extraordinary art, provides a rare lens through which we can see a region in deadly conflict."--Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy In 2011, Marwan Hisham and his two friends--fellow working-class college students Nael and Tareq--joined the first protests of the Arab Spring in Syria, in response to a recent massacre. Arm-in-arm they marched, poured Coca-Cola into one another's eyes to blunt the effects of tear gas, ran from the security forces, and cursed the country's president, Bashar al-Assad. It was ecstasy. A long-bottled revolution was finally erupting, and freedom from a brutal dictator seemed, at last, imminent. Five years later, the three young friends were scattered: one now an Islamist revolutionary, another dead at the hands of government soldiers, and the last, Marwan, now a journalist in Turkish exile, trying to find a way back to a homeland reduced to rubble. Marwan was there to witness and document firsthand the Syrian war, from its inception to the present. He watched from the rooftops as regime warplanes bombed soldiers; as revolutionary activist groups, for a few dreamy days, spray-painted hope on Raqqa; as his friends died or threw in their lot with Islamist fighters. He became a journalist by courageously tweeting out news from a city under siege by ISIS, the Russians, and the Americans all at once. He saw the country that ran through his veins--the country that held his hopes, dreams, and fears--be destroyed in front of him, and eventually joined the relentless stream of refugees risking their lives to escape. Illustrated with more than eighty ink drawings by Molly Crabapple that bring to life the beauty and chaos, Brothers of the Gun offers a ground-level reflection on the Syrian revolution--and how it bled into international catastrophe and global war. This is a story of pragmatism and idealism, impossible violence and repression, and, even in the midst of war, profound acts of courage, creativity, and hope. "A book of startling emotional power and intellectual depth."--Pankaj Mishra, author of Age of Anger and From the Ruins of Empire "A revelatory and necessary read on one of the most destructive wars of our time."--Angela Davis

A vivid, human and radical history of one of the most powerful revolutionary movements of the twentieth century - told through the lives and in the voices of countless forgotten men and women ‘A gripping, human story of love, idealism and betrayal - and an immense, rigorous contribution to the historical record. Reading it feels revolutionary’ Naomi Klein Here Where Live Is Our Country is the story of a revolutionary movement – the Jewish Bund – which played a part in nearly every major conflict in Eastern Europe from 1900-1945, but still remains an almost unknown part of twentieth-century history. The movement’s central philosophy of “herenes” – the belief that Jews had a right to freedom and dignity in the countries where they lived – led them to fight the Tsar, reject Zionism, resist the Nazis, and ultimately help lead the Warsaw ghetto revolt. It is also a philosophy that immediately resonates with the political situation all over the world today. In this book, Molly Crabapple tells the story of the Bund through the lives of the bold and brilliant individuals who were pivotal to carrying out the doctrine, including her own great-grandfather, through whom she first discovered the movement.

A vivid, human and radical history of one of the most powerful revolutionary movements of the twentieth century - told through the lives and in the voices of countless forgotten men and women

The dramatic story of the Jewish Bund--a revolutionary movement from a vanished world--and their radical vision of solidarity in an age of division. "Molly Crabapple beckons readers through a portal to an irresistible, lost world, one bound together by passion, solidarity, and a burning hunger for justice."--Naomi Klein, New York Times bestselling author of No Logo and Doppelganger When artist Sam Rothbort created his "Memory Paintings" in the aftermath of the Holocaust, he was trying to resurrect the vanished world of his shtetl childhood. When his great-granddaughter, the award-winning artist and journalist Molly Crabapple, discovered his archives decades later, one painting stood out: a girl, her dress the same color as the sky above, hurling a rock through a cottage window. Itka the Bundist, Breaking Windows. That single painting sent Crabapple on a journey into the Jewish Labor Bund. Once the most influential Jewish political force in eastern Europe--and a player in some of the most important events of the twentieth century--they were secular, socialist, and uncompromisingly anti-Zionist. They fought for dignity and equality, not in an imagined homeland in Palestine, but "here, where we live." In the first popular history of the Bund, Crabapple recreates their extraordinary world through dramatic portraits of leaders and foot soldiers alike. The characters Crabapple brings to such vivid life--insurgent poets and anti-religious rebels, clandestine revolutionaries and lovers on the barricades--live deeply through this violent, volatile, and somehow hopeful period, their stories intimately bound up with the Russian Revolution and the Holocaust. Crabapple also grapples with the vital question raised by their rise and fall: What can we learn from a movement that, for all its toughness, imagination, and moral clarity, was largely destroyed? With intimate portraiture and sweeping history, Here Where We Live Is Our Country reanimates a band of idealists who broadened our global political imagination. As we once again contend with nationalism, repression, and the struggle for belonging, the Bund's remarkable story and message--that liberation, dignity, and solidarity must begin where we stand--reaches across time as a guide to our own urgent moment.

Once Upon a Christmas Tree is the heart-warming tale of two love-struck ornaments who have been placed at opposite ends of an enchanted pine. One, a Small Wooden Soldier, and the other, a Tiny Winter Dancer. With only a very short window of Christmas Magic, the Soldier must escape his decorative hook and reunite with his one true love before Midnight - Christmas Day.

The Raindrop Keeper is a whimsical day-dreamy look into the life of one boy with a very odd obsession. Collecting raindrops! Come along as his fondness for driplets takes him around the world and back again, all the while spinning wildly out of control. A must have book that will spark a child's imagination through those rainy cold days ahead.