Walter Hamady, an extraordinary artist of the world of paper making, book design, and bookbinding. He is a poet, teacher, collaborator, and innovator. No other artist has done more to influence the world of contemporary handmade books than Walter Hamady. Born in Flint, Michigan in 1940, Hamady studied art in Detroit, then Cranbrook Academy of Art (MFA). On a visit to relatives in Iowa, Hamady met Harry Duncan, a teacher at the University of Iowa, and saw a finely made artist book for the first time. This was the spark for Hamady. While an undergrad he founded Perishable Press Limited, and a few years later, Shadwell Papermill. He is a professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, having taught there for over 30 years(he is currently retired) .

His Perishable Press has designed and printed more than 130 limited edition books for well-known poets (Black Mountain Poets) and writers. Hamady also collaborates with visual artists. He has won over 13 AIGA (American Institute of Graphic Arts Fifty Best Books and Fifty Best Covers Awards). Hamady is known to be an amazing teacher and mentor. Many well known book artists studied with Hamady, including Barbara Tetenbaum, Walter Tisdale, Amos Kennedy, Caren Heft, Kathy Kuehn. One can say that Walter Hamady is the grandfather of current letterpress-bookarts-paper making students today. A self described “heretic aetheist curmuddgeon irrasible” [sic], he is known for his ‘random rambles’. Curmudgeon or not, one gets the tone of Hamady’s voice in his letters, lectures and teachings.

Ibish was a distinguished scholar whose interests spanned both pre- modern and modern Islamic culture and societies. His particular field of specialisation was pre-modern Islamic political thought, but his interests and expertise ranged far. His professional life was spent teaching, at the American University in Beirut, Cambridge and Amherst. He leaves a legacy of some 30 books: bibliographies and documentation of Arab politics, treatises on Islamic political theory, analyses of Muslim society and biographies. Among his most important later works in Arabic is an invaluable concordance to the Koran, listing references to each verse from the 20 most significant commentaries, spanning many centuries and schools of thought.

Michael Naimeh is a world renowned Lebanese writer. He completed his law studies at the University of Washington in 1916 and returned to Lebanon in the early thirties where he wrote many literary works in Arabic in his beautiful hometown of Baskinta in the mountains of Lebanon.

Among his best known books is the Book of Mirdad, a mystical text first published in Lebanon in 1948, which was translated into English and published in London in 1962.

The mystic Osho had this to say about The Book of Mirdad. He said, “There are millions of books in the world, but ‘The Book of Mirdad’ stands out far above any book in existence.” The book is a parable about a monastery that stood where Noah’s ark came to rest after the flood subsided. It describes the very nature of human existence and Man’s relation to the God within. It is told through the eyes of the monks as their lives change when a mystical stranger, Mirdad, enters the monastery. Osho says, “It is a small book, but the man who gave birth to this book – and mind my words, I am not saying ‘the man who wrote this book’, nobody wrote this book – was an unknown, a nobody. And because he was not a novelist, he never wrote again; just that single book contains his whole experience. The name of the man was Micahel Naimeh.” While it is not factually accurate that Naimeh never wrote again, one finds it hard to imagine that there could be more to mysticism or to life than what has been described in ‘The Book of Mirdad’.

Mr. Naimeh was a biographer and longtime associate of Khalil Gibran, the Lebanese writer, artist, poet, and philosopher and he penned the first Biography about him (first published in Arabic) in 1934. The biography was later translated into English and reprinted in 1950.

He was fluent in three languages: English, Russian and Arabic

If you ever want to visit Michael Naimeh’s village of Baskinta, here’s some useful contacts:

Lodging in Baskinta
Mar Sassine Convent– Tel: 04 288 030
Khoury Hanna Guesthouse – Tel: 03 134 593
Monte Sannine Hotel – Tel: 04 251 122

Lodging in Kfar Aqab
Gites du Liban – Tel: 04 280 316 (summer only)

Local Guides
Carole Akl – Tel: 03 825 068
George Hobeika – Tel: 03 451 113
Carlos Hobeika – Tel: 03 580 901
Nader Tebshrani – Tel: 04 250 055