In Tripoli, Lebanon, Funding a Space for Book-lovers

The books and readers of Tripoli, Lebanon saw difficult times this winter, with the burning of the historic Al-Sa’eh bookshop, among other acts of violence. But the city came to the aid of its biggest bookshop, and now Najwa Sahmarani has galvanized a group to to fund a new “Alkindy” literary and cultural space, named for the ninth-century Iraqi philosopher:

Alkindy bookmarks were sold at Tripoli Book Fair to raise funds.

Sahmarani began gathering information and pitching the idea in April at this year’s Tripoli International Book Fair.

According to the crowdfunding page:

Through our presence at Tripoli Book Fair we were able to attract nearly 600 interested individuals that contributed offline to the campaign and lots of community support.The enthusiasm for this project is fairly translated on the Facebook page we recently launched – second week of April: https://www.facebook.com/alkindytripoli

Sahmarani told Lebanon’s Daily Star, in a recently published report, that…