The Vanishing Booksellers of Baghdad

Al-Mutannabi Street, in central Baghdad, has had many names. In the second Abbasid period, it was the Paper Market. Under the Ottomans it was Military Bakery Street. Under the British it was Hassan Pasha Street. The current name dates from 1932, when the Ministry of the Interior renamed much of the city. In all its guises, the street has been famous for booksellers - and much beloved. Informally, it is often called the “artery of Baghdad.” On March 5, 2007, it was largely destroyed by a car bomb. ”Here, they also sold bridles, saddles and shoes for religious men,” says Afram Hussein al-Fufuli, 69, concluding my history lesson. My translator-colleague and I had been directed to Fufuli by a younger bookseller up the street, who called him “the dictionary.” In his brown blazer and sweater, Fufuli did indeed have a professorial air. Framed by dusty stacks of books tall as himself (between Arabic volumes: John Le CarrÉ, Macroeconomic Theory, Richard Nixon’s Leaders), he conducted slow business out of a small brick storefront, which, he said, his father opened in 1930. https://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20090306/wl_time/08599188256600