Decolonising the Page is a research project by Dr. Zeina Maasri (University of Bristol) supported by an Arts and Humanities Research Council Fellowship (AHRC–UK 2022-25). The project investigates the visual culture of Arabic books during processes of decolonisation dating from the 1950s through the 1980s.

The online exhibition brings together a digitised collection of around 250 books, enabling broad accessibility to rich historical sources in art and design and to little known archives of Arab visual and material culture that hold contemporary resonance. Through the Library and Learning Hub, the website supplements the exhibition with further insights about the books on display. Designed with a non-specialist audience in mind, the website is intended to be enjoyed by anyone interested in the subject matter and can serve as a teaching resource across various courses and academic disciplines. Crucially, the primary objective of this website is to draw attention to a neglected, yet remarkable, golden era of Arabic book arts, better to appreciate the visual significance of postcolonial Arabic books, spark interest and inspire further research.

Decolonising the Page largely draws from the private collections of Abboudi Bou Jawde (Al-Furat Bookshop, Beirut – Lebanon), renowned bibliophile and collector of Arabic print ephemera, with whom a long-standing partnership has been developing over many years to identify, collect, catalogue, and document illustrated Arabic books.

The research project has also benefitted from the British Library’s Arabic Collections and the expertise of its curator Daniel Lowe, as well as the archival collections of Iraqi artist Dia al-Azzawi (Azzawi Archives, London).