Year of Issue, 2013

Year of Issue, 2013, Books, Shelf, Perspex, 36 x 63 x 25 cm

The year a book is published is the year it becomes its own complete entity and is freed to the world. Similarly, the year of independence of a country is the year it, in principle, becomes its own entity and is liberated.

19 books are displayed, representing the 19 countries across the MENA region, whereby each book shares the same date of ‘liberation’ to its respective country’s year of freedom.

Clear parallels are drawn between the books and countries based on that single year.

Presenting a linear historical chronicle of independence and liberation is significant, and the arrangement surprising.

The choice of books highlights the reciprocity to their country’s respective affairs of state and adds a certain ironic, incisive and perhaps even humorous dimension. For instance, Morocco was liberated in 1956, the same year French Leave was published by P.G.Wodehouse. Similarly, Libya was liberated in 1951, the same year The Wisdom of Insecurity was published and Israel’s foundation in 1948 shares the same year of publication as The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene.

In light of the Arab Spring and further uprisings, questions arise around the significance of dates of independence and whether countries were ever free in the first place. What is significant, however, is the relationship between history and literature, politics and the written word as freedom of expression.

Below are the 19 countries that constitute the MENA region alongside their respective books issued that same year that I have chosen to display.

Oman – 1650 – Critica Sacra by Edward Leigh

Egypt – 1922 – The Beautiful and Damned by F.Scott Fitzgerald

Saudi Arabia – 1932 – Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Iraq – 1932 – The Journey to the East by Hermann Hesse

Lebanon – 1943 – Being and Nothingness by Jean Paul Sartres

Syria – 1946 - America is in the Heart by Carlos Bulosan

Jordan – 1946 – All Men are Mortal by Simone de Beauvoir

Israel – 1948 – The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene

Libya – 1951 – The Wisdom of Insecurity by Alan Wilson Watts

Tunisia – 1956 – The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis

Morocco – 1956 – French Leave by P.G Wodehouse

Kuwait – 1961 – Catch 22 by Joseph Heller

Algeria – 1962 – Capitalism and Freedom by Milton Friedman

UAE – 1971 – Tower of Glass by Robert Silverberg

Bahrain – 1971 – War and Remembrance by Herman Wouk

Qatar – 1971 – That Was Then, This Is Now by S.E. Hinton

Iran – 1979 – The Never Ending Story by Michael Ende and Ralph Manheim

Yemen – 1990 – Homeland by R.A. Salvatore

Palestine – N/A