Princesses Street 2

Published by Dar Al-Adab, Princesses Street: Chapters of an Autobiography (Volume 2) (Shari' Al-Amirat) is the vibrant second installment of Palestinian intellectual Jabra Ibrahim Jabra’s memoirs. Picking up after the 1948 Nakba, the book shifts its locus to Baghdad—specifically the cosmopolitan "Princesses Street" in the Mansour district, where Jabra made his permanent home. Jabra recounts his transformative journey as a professor, art critic, and translator, illustrating how Baghdad evolved from a place of exile into a thriving sanctuary of artistic creation. With profound affection and vivid detail, he chronicles his courtship and marriage to his Iraqi wife, Lamia, and his pivotal role in co-founding the "Baghdad Modern Art Group" alongside icons like Jawad Saleem. The memoir serves as a priceless cultural history of mid-20th-century Iraq, documenting conversations with legendary poets and painters during a golden era of modern Arab intellectual renaissance.

It is an essential, beautifully written cultural memoir that offers a rare intimate glimpse into the mid-century Iraqi art and literary movement, demonstrating how exile can be transformed into a flowering of creative resilience.

Ideal for readers of modern Arabic autobiographies, historians of Arab cultural movements, and anyone interested in mid-20th-century Iraqi art, literature, and intellectual history.