Revolution Books, New York City
New York City, Revolution Books
HOURS: Tues-Thurs-Fri-Sat-Sun 12-6 pm
LOCATION: 437 Malcolm X Blvd (at 132nd St) (2/3 train to 135th St)
New York, NY 10037
CONTACT: 212-691-3345
revbooksnyc@yahoo.com
revolutionbooksnyc.org
Revolution Books, Berkeley
Berkeley Revolution Books
HOURS: Tues-Fri 12:30-7pm; Sat & Sun 1:00-6pm
LOCATION: 2444 Durant Avenue
Berkeley, CA 94704
CONTACT: 510-848-1196
revolutionbooksberkeley@gmail.com
www.revolutionbooks.org
New York Events
437 Malcolm X Blvd (at 132nd St) (2/3 train to 135th St)
New York, NY 10037
In-person at RB: Omar El Akkad "One Day, Everyone Will Always Have Been Against This"
Saturday, March 29, 4:00pm
On October 25, 2023, three weeks into the unrelenting bombardment of Gaza, Omar El Akkad put out a tweet:
“One day, when it’s safe, when there’s no personal downside to calling a thing what it is, when it’s too late to hold anyone accountable, everyone will have always been against this.”
This tweet has been viewed more than 10 million times.
Over the past twenty years, El Akkad has reported on the Arab Spring, the US invasions in the Middle East, climate change, the Guantanamo torture camp, Black Lives Matter protests. And now, watching the unmitigated slaughter in Gaza, he writes:
“...You are being asked to kill off a part of you that would otherwise scream in opposition to injustice. You are being asked to dismantle the machinery of a functioning conscience. Who cares if diplomatic expediency prefers you shrug away the sight of dismembered children?... Forget pity, forget even the dead if you must, but at least fight against the theft of your soul.”
One Day is part memoir, part analysis and searing exposure. On the genocide in Gaza: “[T]he empire . . . must look upon this and say: Yes, this is tragic, but necessary, because the alternative is barbarism. The alternative to the countless killed and maimed and orphaned and left without home without school without hospital and the screaming from under the rubble and the corpses disposed of by vultures and dogs and the days-old babies left to scream and starve, is barbarism.”
This book makes the unflinching argument-- a demand-- to every reader, including those living at a comfortable distance (for now) from the horrors many millions in this world currently suffer: Do not look away. Act.
"[In his] fiercely agonized new book about American and European responses to the devastation of Gaza, El Akkad is trying...to force American readers to think of Palestinian victims not as 'them' but as 'us.'"
-- New York Times Sunday Book Review (cover review)
"A landmark of truth telling and moral courage... "
-- Junot Diaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
OMAR EL AKKAD was born in Egypt, grew up in Qatar, moved to Canada as a teenager, and now lives in the US. His books have been translated into thirteen languages. His debut novel, American War, was named by the BBC as one of 100 novels that shaped our world.
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Joining Omar on Saturday at 4pm at RB:
Poet MARWA HELAL
Marwa Helal is the author of Ante Body and Invasive Species, Marwa Helal was born in Egypt. Her work has appeared in Hyperallergic, Boston Review, Poets & Writers. She won BOMB Magazine’s Biennial 2016 Poetry Contest and has had fellowships from the Whiting Foundation, New York Foundation of the Arts, Cave Canem, and many more.
This event is co-sponsored by Revolution Books Educational Fund, a 501(c)3 tax-deductible entity.
Suggested donation at the door: $5-10 for Revolution Books
Berkeley Events
2444 Durant Avenue
Berkeley, CA 94704
Big Used Book Sale, Benefit for Revolution Books
Friday, April 4th, Saturday, April 5th and Sunday, April 6th from 12-6 p.m.
Come to our Used Book Sale, Friday-Sunday, April 4-5-6, from 12-6pm.
Donate funds now and volunteer to sort books and to staff the sale.
We have raised about $1000 towards our $3000 goal.
Revolution Books is even MORE important now as an intellectual, political, and cultural center for revolution as Trump/MAGA fascism drives to consolidate its grip on power and over society.
In this time when millions of people are being jolted as the Trump/MAGA fascists carry out one horror after another, what kind of future we get depends on what people understand and what they do.
This is where Revolution Books comes in. Revolution Books is where the whole world comes first, and the poetic spirit meets the search for the truth.
Where we carry a selection of a wide range of crucial literature — poetry, books on the history, culture and struggle of African American, Latine, Asian and Native peoples, women and LGBTQ, immigrants, books on science - all now under attack.
Support Revolution Books by donating books 📚📔📕 and come to the Benefit Book Sale, volunteers needed!
We need books (in good condition) of all kinds: history, fiction, African, Asian, Latine and Native American, women's, kids', science, graphic novels.
To donate books, contact us at revolutionbooksberkeley@gmail.com or call 510-848-1196. You can drop them off during our open hours: Tues-Fri from 12:30-7pm, Sat and Sun, 1-6pm.
Or to support the store, you can get a gift card for a friend or order online at www.revolutionbooks.org. Monthly sustainers needed, join Patreon.
Satsuki Ina presents her memoir: THE POET AND THE SILK GIRL
Friday, April 11th, 7 p.m.
In 1941 US President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 and invoked the 1798 Enemy Aliens Act, and 125,000 people of Japanese descent,
including newlyweds and American citizens Itaru and Shizuko Ina, were forcibly removed and incarcerated in remote concentration camps for years,
without charges, trial or due process.
Many of their homes, property and businesses were stolen by their white neighbors, and never returned. These fundamental violations of basic rights and US constitutional rights were a consequence of war time patriotism and racism and intended by the government to intensify that hysteria - to unite the country behind racism and patriotism against “the enemy”.
Satsuki Ina was born to Itaru and Shizuko during their imprisonment. She is a psychotherapist and an activist and weaves their story together in this moving mosaic through diary entries, photographs, clandestine letters, and heart-wrenching haiku. She reveals how this intrepid young couple navigated life,love, loss, and loyalty tests in the welter of World War II-era hysteria.
From Heyday, the publisher:
The Poet and the Silk Girl illustrates through one family’s saga the generational struggle of Japanese Americans who resisted racist oppression, fought for the restoration of their rights, and clung to their full humanity in the face of adversity.
With psychological insight, Ina excavates the unmentionable, recovering a chronicle of resilience amid some of the severest blows to American civil liberties. As she traces the legacies of trauma, she connects her family’s ordeal to modern-day mass incarceration at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Lyrical and gripping, this cautionary tale implores us to prevent the repetition of atrocity, pairing healing and protest with galvanizing power.
In this time when Trump MAGA fascism is incarcerating and deporting immigrants to hell hole prisons without due process, along with a furious onslaught of other fascist measures, when the government is declaring it is acting under the authority of very same Enemy Aliens Act which was used against the Japanese in World War II and has not been used since,
Revolution Books is proud to host Satsuki Ina and we invite everyone to come, listen and engage on these crucial questions.
NEVER AGAIN IS NOW!
