Mon Afrique: Photographs of Sub-Saharan Africa by: Pascal Maitre and Calixthe Beyala
Hardcover. NY, Aperture, 1st, 2000, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 176 pages. In a convergence of brilliant color and compelling visual narrative, this new collection of photographs by Pascal Maitre reveals an Africa unfamiliar to most Westerners. He portrays a wide range of experience in sub-Saharan Africa: in Niger's desert, soldiers juggle goats and machine guns; within the forest, a rosary dangles from the chest of a warrior in a Bassorian initiation ceremony. In this startlingly beautiful land, ornamented by the marks of human struggle and worship, contradictions are plentiful. Rich in detail and elegant composition, Maitre's photographs immerse us in an Africa beyond the familiar media depictions. He shows an Africa living with the contradictions of tradition and modernization, of ritual headdresses and plastic flip-flops, of tribal wars and machine guns, of ancestral deities and nonbelievers. A lively preface by Cameroon-born author Calixthe Beyala.
