Skip to main content
rile*books

Search books

Search books by title, author, publisher, keywords...

Cover of The Fast-Growing Stinking Escaped Waste-Loving Wall-Breaching Self-Cloning Other-than-Natural No-Man’s Tree

Sharjah Art Foundation

The Fast-Growing Stinking Escaped Waste-Loving Wall-Breaching Self-Cloning Other-than-Natural No-Man’s Tree

Areej Ashhab , Ailo Ribbas

€20.00

The fast-growing stinking escaped waste-loving wall-breaching self-cloning other-than-natural no-man’s tree is a 4000-word bilingual English-Arabic photo essay examining the ecological, political and historical significance of ailanthus altissima (tree of heaven) in occupied Palestine. Introduced by the Jewish National Fund during its Jerusalem Forest afforestation projects from the 1960s to 1980s, this tree flourished across various urban fringes, roadside areas and seemingly abandoned land. Known for its pungent odour, which earned it the nicknames ‘tree of hell’ and the ‘stinking tree’, it is now classified by the Israeli Ministry for the Protection of the Environment as an invasive species. 

Drawing on her formative experiences in Palestine and an interest in trees as political agents, Palestinian architect, artist and researcher Areej Ashhab provides a first-hand account of the invasiveness embodied by this unregulated, fast-growing weed-tree. The text is enriched by annotations by Catalan-British trans writer, researcher and community organiser Ailo Ribas, who unpacks the concepts of 'weediness' and explores issues of belonging and resistance within Palestine’s settler colonial context. Accompanied by recent photographs of the tree across Palestine, the publication lays bare the intricate root system and complex ecologies that underlie our geopolitical narratives.

This publication was realised through the support of Sharjah Art Foundation’s annual publishing grant (2023). 

recommendations

Cover of NIGHTNIGHT

Self-Published

NIGHTNIGHT

Aïda Bruyère

In collaboration with Laurent Poleo-Garnier, NIGHTNIGHT is an archive of images and texts from different sources addressing the theme of the night. Over the book as a party that degenerates with fatigue, alcohol and other stimulants, images and layout deteriorate, the subjects get tired, the vision is cloudy...

Cover of Pier Paolo Pasolini: Writing on Burning Paper

Fireflies Press

Pier Paolo Pasolini: Writing on Burning Paper

Annabel Brady-Brown, Giovanni Marchini Camia

Poetry €33.00

Published on the centenary year of Pasolini’s birth, Pier Paolo Pasolini: Writing on Burning Paper is a dual edition that stages a dialogue between cinema today and Pasolini’s timeless films and words.

The two complementary volumes slide into one another, forming a unique set that evokes and celebrates Pasolini’s enduring influence. The smaller book features his epic autobiographical poem ‘Poet of the Ashes’, in a revised translation by esteemed poet Stephen Sartarelli; the larger book comprises original tributes by vital filmmakers from across the contemporary cinema landscape.

Twenty filmmakers shared personal reflections in the form of essays, poems, photographs, drawings and more: Catherine Breillat, Luise Donschen & Helena Wittmann, Jia Zhangke, Radu Jude, Payal Kapadia, Alexandre Koberidze, Dane Komljen, Mike Leigh, Mariano Llinás, Roberto Minervini, Valérie Massadian, Luc Moullet, Ben Rivers, Angela Schanelec, Ulrich Seidl, Basma al-Sharif, Deborah Stratman, Anocha Suwichakornpong and Gustavo Vinagre.

Cover of Anabases

Archive Books

Anabases

Eric Baudelaire

This book documents an installation by Eric Baudelaire revisiting the political and personal saga of the Japanese Red Army as an anabasys—an allegory of a journey that is both a wandering into the unknown and a return back home.

“This book is not for reading but for wandering. Its lines do not roll out continuously but superimpose each other to infinity, creating not a compendium of knowledge but a web of prescience. It does not follow a logical framework but unfurls a grid with multiple entries. It does not assert a set subject or conclusive postulate. At most it invites us to probe the recesses of a mind in motion, and steeps us in the driving material that brings it to life. It reflects the works it exhibits, the documents it discloses and the commentary it generates: it aspires to ubiquity. Anabasis, the very real linking thread that stitches it together, serves not just as an archaeological enigma, but also as an allegorical force. The main author of this ocean crossing, Eric Baudelaire, is both a collector of vestiges and a sketcher of wandering lines who has surrounded himself with other meticulous voices (Pierre Zaoui, Homay King, Jean-Pierre Rehm), fellow-travellers in this library secret. Readers will be able to enjoy the gradual unfolding of the story of war and politics whose underlying intellectual and poetic adventure this book enables us to recall—that of its repetitions, ramifications and hybridisations: the story of Anabasis after Anabasis (or from Xenophon's Anabasis to that of Paul Celan by way of Alain Badiou's), from an ancient narrative to its modern reappropriation.” — Morad Montazami 

Edited by Eric Baudelaire and Anna Colin.

Texts by Morad Montazami, Pierre Zaoui, Homay King, Jean-Pierre Rehm.

Cover of Untitled

Capricious

Untitled

Sasha Phyars-Burgess

Photography €40.00

Sasha Phyars-Burgess’ first monograph, Untitled. Spanning three bodies of work, this 200-plus page monograph includes poems by Ser Alida and Aurora Masum-Javed, a conversation between Sasha Phyars-Burgess, Juliana Huxtable and Carolyn Lazard, and essay by Bill Gaskins. Designed by Studio Lin.

As recipient of the second annual Capricious Photo Award, Sasha is a vital, emerging voice in contemporary photography, engaging the charged line between documentary and fine art. Her work ranges from affecting studies on diaspora, family and place to revolving social phenomenons in which energy, beauty and power meet.

The second annual jury panel was helmed by Capricious Founder and Publisher Sophie Mörner and Associate Publisher Anika Sabin alongside Lauren Cornell, Katherine Hubbard, JOFF, Matt Keegan, Guadalupe Rosales, Ka-Man Tse, and Lyndsy Welgos.

Cover of Sun of an Ignored Putrid Productivity

BookBoi*

Sun of an Ignored Putrid Productivity

Bárbara Acevedo Strange, Eva Tatjana Stürmer

Fiction €10.00

Sun of an Ignored Putrid Productivity is a speculative novel about the influence of artificial intelligence and accelerating technological progress on our human interactions. The dialogical script is based on personal reflections and pop-cultural, scientific and philosophical references from the beginnings of cybernetics to more recent voices. Randomly generated, constructed and quoted contents cannot be distinguished from each other. The borderline between fact and fiction becomes blurred. What is left is a flickering effect, disorientation, which reflects our perception of reality under conditions of never-ending information overflow.