jan 1, 1960 - 'IRAQI LETTERS' - ????? in 'Golden Age' Iraq
Description:
Iraq’s dazzling progress in economic, urban and educational modernisation in the 1960s, when the smoky fragrance of the Mesopotamian arts and other ancient beauties were constantly being resuscitated to avoid drowning in the intoxicating odours of “black gold”, at once synonymous with the transformation of society and a political curse.7 Such is the hummed refrain, transmuted by Latif Al Ani into “Iraqi letters” (echoing Montesquieu’s “Persian Letters”), letters of nobility and letters preserving a memory, even while he held the post of principal photographer for Ahl al-Naft (People of Oil) and Iraq Petroleum, publications of the British-owned Iraq Petroleum Company. Al Ani insists continually in various interviews on his early consciousness of the future destruction represented by the events following the 1958 revolution, as if at the beginning of his career there had never been any other desire than that of documenting oblivion, or, to use the title of this article, reimagining Iraq.
Added to timeline:
Timelines Iraq & Latif al Ani
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