Radical anti-imperialist literature from Yemen, Oman & the Arabian Gulf. Translated, redesigned, republished.
Joined February 2023
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Once Upon a Time.
A Red Arabia.
Democratic Yemen remains one of the twentieth century's least studied and least understood experiments of socialist state building.
We at Hamra Books intend to change that.
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Democratic Yemen’s nationwide 1985 literacy campaign brought education to workers, women and remote rural communities. It was one of the republic’s most ambitious social achievements, treating literacy not as a privilege, but as a basic human right.
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In only six months, Democratic Yemen’s campaign reached around 194,000 illiterate adults—77% of them women. Some 187,000 enrolled, and over 155,000 acquired basic literacy: a success rate of roughly 83% in a country of just two million people.
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Every person who completed the literacy campaign received a “Certificate of Liberation from Illiteracy.” It confirmed that they had learned to read and write and qualified them to continue their education at the follow-up stage.
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Anthem of the Yemeni People's Army, the Armed Forces of Democratic Yemen and the armed wing of the Yemeni Socialist Party, performed sometime in the late 1980s.
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🚨Are you a skilled web designer passionate about radical publishing, history, and archival work?
Hamra is looking for a dedicated volunteer to join our team and help us build a strong digital presence online.
If that's you, send us your portfolio👇
webdesign@hamrabooks.com
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Note: Hamra Books is an independent project sustained by a small, dedicated team working in our spare time. For that reason, we are looking for someone who understands the nature of the work and is motivated by a serious commitment to our mission.
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At independence, Democratic Yemen inherited just 360 primary schools.
By 1977, it had nearly 1,000 schools, made education free, founded Aden University, and raised pupil enrollment by 312%.
The pursuit of socialism turned colonial neglect into people’s education.
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Born from colonial de-development, and surrounded by wars and hostile regimes, Democratic Yemen still built factories, fisheries, refineries, and public industries, a remarkable achievement for a small socialist republic with so little.
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You may have noticed the videos we have begun publishing recently.
Hamra Books aims to expand beyond publishing into a wider platform for the preservation, study, and circulation of materials on Democratic Yemen, Oman, and the forgotten socialist movements of the Arab Gulf.
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Over the years, we have assembled a substantial archive of films, literature, documents, and artefacts from the region’s socialist experiments. Our aim is to make Hamra an archive in its own right: a resource for scholars, researchers, and anyone curious.
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We will be sharing and publishing more content in the lead-up to our debut release, and long after it. We are excited about this new direction, and we hope you will join us in it.
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On the anniversary of the Omani People’s Revolution, we present a rare collection of film clips captured in 1969, at the height of the revolutionary struggle.
Oman was one of the Cold War’s fiercest yet most forgotten battlefields.
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Today marks the 61st anniversary of the Omani People’s Revolution of June 9.
On this day, the Omani people rose and gathered their strength for a People’s War, to break the chains of the feudal, colonial-backed sultanate that had bound them hand and foot.
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The Yemeni Socialist Party, the ruling party of the former Democratic Yemen, was founded on October 13–14, 1978, as the Marxist-Leninist vanguard of Yemen’s transition to socialism.
Its establishment formally replaced the NLF, which was dissolved in favor of the new party.
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In 1978, Democratic Yemen set out to expand free and affordable social housing for its people, ordering a factory for prefabricated panel housing from Hungary.
By 1987, the factory was producing an estimated 500 flats a year, leaving a lasting mark on Aden’s urban landscape.
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Did you know Socialist South Yemen once had its own state-owned beer?
Seera Beer was brewed and bottled in Aden by the National Brewing Company during the era of the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen.
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Its final destruction came during the 1994 civil war. After the defeat of the southern leadership and the entry of northern forces into Aden, the Seera Beer factory was looted, burned, and shut down.
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With the factory gone, legal local beer production in Yemen effectively ended. Seera Beer caps, bottles and labels remain rare curiosities for collectors around the world.
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