This author explores the complexities of identity and cultural intersections with a unique perspective, drawing from Nigerian roots and American life. Early experiences with art and publishing hint at a deep understanding of visual storytelling and social commentary. Through their work, they delve into themes of belonging and the continuous reinvention of the self. Readers can expect insightful explorations of how environments shape the soul.
Fazal Sheikh's poignant photography captures the experiences of displaced individuals and altered landscapes due to political and environmental crises. Over 25 years, he has documented the struggles of refugees amidst rising authoritarianism and xenophobia globally. In collaboration with novelist Teju Cole, their work emphasizes the importance of compassion and individual courage in today's world. Together, they challenge readers to reflect on critical questions of community, belonging, and humanity, fostering a dialogue about coexistence in an increasingly divided society.
"The Palestine Festival of Literature was established in 2008. Bringiong together writers from all corners of the globe, it aims to help Palestinians break the cultural siege imposed by the Isreali military occupation, to strengthen their artistic links with the the rest of the world."--Book flap
The shadow of a tree in upstate New York. A hotel room in Switzerland. A young stranger in the Congo. In Blind Spot, readers will follow Teju Cole's inimitable artistic vision into the visual realm, as he continues to refine the voice and intellectual obsessions that earned him such acclaim for Open City. In more than 150 pairs of images and surprising, lyrical text, Cole explores his complex relationship to the visual world through his two great passions: writing and photography. Blind Spot is a testament to the art of seeing by one of the most powerful and original voices in contemporary literature.
A profound book of essays from a celebrated master of the form. "Darkness is not empty," writes Teju Cole in Black Paper, a book that meditates on what it means to sustain our humanityand witness the humanity of othersin a time of darkness.
“Many artists have felt the lure of juxtaposing photographs and text, but few have succeeded as well as Teju Cole. He approaches this problem with an understanding of the limitations and glories of each medium.” Stephen ShoreIn the period leading up to the November 3, 2020 elections in the United States, Teju Cole began to photograph his kitchen counter in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Working in the still life tradition of Chardin, Cezanne, and the Dutch masters, as well as such contemporary photographers as Laura Letinsky and Jan Groover, he photographed every day over the course of five weeks. Unlike those illustrious forbears, Cole left his arrangements entirely to chance, “the bowls and plates moving in their unpredictable constellations.” What emerges is a surprising portrait, across time, of one kitchen counter in one home at a time of social, cultural, and political upheaval. Alongside the photographs is a long written essay, as wide-ranging in its concerns—hunger, fasting, mourning, slavery, intimacy, painting, poetry and the history of photography—as the photographs are delimited in theirs. The text and photographic sequences are interspersed with an anonymous handwritten eighteenth century cookbook from Cambridge. Golden Apple of the Sun is a luminous and humane work, presented with the formal boldness and oblique intelligence we have come to expect from Teju Cole.
Persuasive and provocative, erudite yet accessible, Known and Strange Things
is an opportunity to live within Teju Cole's wide-ranging enthusiasms,
curiosities and passions, and a chance to see the world in surprising and
affecting new frames.
Accompanying Singh’s first touring retrospective, this survey includes previously unseen early works, favorite series and new montages The internationally acclaimed photographer Dayanita Singh often describes herself as a “book artist.” Accordingly, Singh was closely involved in the making of this magnificent exhibition catalog, which accompanies a major touring retrospective of Singh’s work, curated by Stephanie Rosenthal for the Gropius Bau.The most comprehensive publication yet published on Singh’s photographic art, it includes a series of long-form and short-form scholarly essays, full-color reproductions and installation images. The texts situate Singh’s work in relation to topics such as Indian classical music, photographic lineages and traditions, conceptions of the archive, choreography and the economies of reproduction.Presenting every important phase in the photographer’s oeuvre, Dancing with My Camera also enters Singh’s archive to include never-before-seen early works from the 1980s, a new series of montages and the works Let’s See, Museum of Chance, Museum of Shedding, I Am as I Am, Go Away Closer and Box 507 , among others.Dayanita Singh (born 1961) is one of today’s most important photographers. Her solo exhibitions have been held at MMK, Frankfurt; Hayward Gallery, London; Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin; and the Art Institute of Chicago.
The new novel from the author of the celebrated Open City - a powerful and masterful exploration of what makes a meaningful life in a world of violence and wonder.
Eine genreübergreifende Erzählung des nigerianischen Literatur-Shooting-Stars Teju Cole. Die Mischung aus Roman, Memoir und Collage eröffnet den Schülerinnen und Schülern eine doppelte Perspektive und weitet den Blick auf die Brüche und Verwerfungen einer pulsierenden Metropole auf dem afrikanischen Kontinent. Die Lektüre liest sich wie ein Reisebericht, doch ist viel mehr als das. Ein junger Schriftsteller kehrt nach Jahren in New York zurück in seine Heimatstadt Lagos. Sein Blick ist der eines Außenseiters und gleichzeitig der eines Einheimischen. Er erlebt Stadt und Land als chaotisch und korrupt, aber auch als dynamisch und modern. Meisterhaft schildert Teju Cole die intensiven Eindrücke einer Heimkehr und eines Lebens zwischen den Welten. Abiturempfehlung zum Thema: Voices of the African Continent: Nigeria
"Visiting Lagos after many years away, Teju Cole's unnamed narrator rediscovers his hometown as both a foreigner and a local. A young writer uncertain of what he wants to say, the man moves through tableaus of life in one of the most dynamic cities in the world: he hears the muezzin's call to prayer in the early morning light, and listens to John Coltrane during the late afternoon heat. He witnesses teenagers diligently perpetrating e-mail frauds from internet cafes, longs after a woman reading Michael Ondaatje on a public bus, and visits the impoverished National Museum. Along the way, he reconnects with old school friends and his family, who force him to ask himself profound questions of personal and national history. Over long, wandering days, the narrator compares present-day Lagos to the Lagos of his memory, and in doing so reveals changes that have taken place in himself. Just as Open City uses New York to reveal layers of the narrator's soul, in Every Day is for the Thief the complex, beautiful, generous, and corrupt city of Lagos exposes truths about our protagonist, and ourselves"--
