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2003, Baghdad. A man tries to tame an Arabian horse looted from one of Saddam Hussein's palaces during the early days of the fall of Baghdad © Moises Saman / Magnum Photos
Magnum Foundation invites you to a conversation and book signing in honor of the upcoming release of Glad Tidings of Benevolence (GOST Books, 2023) by photographer Moises Saman. The event will feature Saman in conversation with Sinan Antoon, followed by a Q&A and book signing. A limited number of advance copies of the book will be available for purchase on site.
Monday, March 20, 2023 | 6:30 - 8:30 PM ET
In-person and online
59 East 4th St, 7W | New York, NY 10003
Published to coincide with the twentieth anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq, Glad Tidings of Benevolence brings together Moises Saman’s photographs taken in Iraq during this period and the following years, with documents and texts relating to the war. Exploring the construction—through image and language—of competing narratives of the war, the book represents the culmination of Saman’s twenty years of work across Iraq.
‘My photographs are not intended to represent an objective account of the Iraq war against which to compare the texts. Rather, the book grapples with my own role and power as a narrator - particularly one with access to foreign publications - and the biases and limitations inevitably embedded in my work.’
Please note that this event may present images that include violence or other graphic content.
Glad Tidings of Benevolence is published by GOST books and was produced with support from the Magnum Foundation.
Moises Saman is a documentary photographer and a member of Magnum Photos. His work has received numerous awards, including the 2015 Guggenheim Grant for Photography, the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund (2014), the Henri Nannen Preis (2014), the World Press Photo (2004, 2007, 2014), and Pictures of the Year International (2012, 2014, 2015). Saman is a regular contributor to National Geographic, The New Yorker , TIME, The New York Times Magazine, among other international publications. From 2007-2012 he was a regular contributor to The New York Times, and from 2000-2007 was a staff photographer at Newsday newspaper in New York. His first monograph Discordia was published in 2016.
Sinan Antoon is a poet, novelist, translator, and scholar. He was born and raised in Baghdad where he finished a B.A in English at Baghdad University in 1990. He left for the United States after the 1991 Gulf War. He was educated at Georgetown and Harvard where he obtained a doctorate in Arabic Literature in 2006. He has published three collections of poetry in Arabic; Mawshur Muballal bil-Hurub (Cairo, 2003,) Laylun Wahidun fi Kull al-Mudun (One Night in All Cities) (Beirut/Baghdad: Dar al-Jamal, 2010), and Kama fi ‘l-Sama’ (As in Heaven) (Beirut/Baghdad: Dar al-Jamal, 2019). His novels include I`jaam (2003), translated into English as I`jaam: An Iraqi Rhapsody (City Lights, 2006); Wahdaha Shajarat al-Rumman (The Pomegranate Alone) (Beirut: al-Mu'assassa al-`Arabiyya, 2010, Dar al-Jamal, 2013); Ya Maryam (Ave Maria) (Beirut: Dar al-Jamal, 2012, 2013); and Fihris, translated into English as The Book of Collateral Damage by Yale University Press in 2019. Sinan returned to his native Baghdad in 2003 to co-produce and co-direct a documentary film about Iraq under occupation entitled About Baghdad (InCounter Productions, 2004). In 2016/2017 Antoon was a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin. He has served on the juries of the National Book Award and the Pen Prize.Antoon is an Associate Professor at New York University's Gallatin School and co-founder and co-editor of Jadaliyya.
Magnum Foundation is in an elevator building and has a restroom that is wheelchair accessible and gender-neutral. For access requests or questions, please contact events@magnumfoundation.org. As a small team, we will better be able to respond to requests made at least one week in advance.
Masks are currently appreciated, but not required. We may provide additional instructions ahead of the event.