How to Maneuver: shape-shifting texts and other publishing tactics

This book presents a rich variety of writings, research projects and artworks that reflect on contemporary practices and histories of publishing, with a strong focus on the Arab world and resonant international practices. From the hand-drawn, self-promoting banner to the relatively established independent publishing house, alternative publishing practices show both the breadth of possibility, as well as the great strength and vulnerability, of some of our most creative and daring civic propositions.

Kayfa ta is a publishing initiative that uses the popular form of how-to manuals (how=kayfa, to=ta) to respond to some of today’s perceived needs; be they the development of skills, tools, thoughts, or sensibilities. These books situate themselves in the space between the technical and the reflective, the everyday and the speculative, the instructional and the intuitive, the factual and the fictional. Kayfa ta was founded in 2012 by Maha Maamoun and Ala Younis.