GEOFF BOTTOMS relishes a profoundly human portrait of a family as it evolves across 55 years in Sheffield
South Africa’s complex relationship with the camera
BOB NEWLAND recommends an outstanding study of how images have shaped narratives of identity, resistance and power in South Africa
Omar Badsha, Funeral of Stembiso Nzuza and Moses Ramatlotlo, killed in an armed clash with police, KwaMashu, KwaZulu-Natal, 1984
[Courtesy Omar Badsha]
PAUL DONOVAN applauds an excellently crafted new musical that explores the life and death of Ruth Ellis
PAUL DONOVAN is tickled by the excruciating take-downs of one of the funniest, wittiest, political writers around.
RON JACOBS points out, via a transcription of Kissinger’s secret recordings, that Trump could never have existed without Nixon and Kissinger
ELLIS RAE is persuaded that the advantages of the ‘talking cure’ are superior to the treatment of mental illness with drugs
JOHN GREEN, MICHAL BONCZA and BELLA KATZ review The Good Boy, Broken English, and Don't Be Prey
Life Itself: Photography and South Africa
Simon A Clarke, Reaktion, £35
I’M NOT an artist or a photographer, but this book does not simply look at these skills. Rather, it explores the role of the art of photography in the fight against apartheid in South Africa.
As if to help non-experts like me, the book opens with a detailed and beautifully illustrated, easily understood, explanation of the development of the technology of photography in the context of the history of South Africa.
It then poses some challenging questions regarding the use of photography to present a picture of South Africa through colonial eyes.
Similar stories
KEVIN DONNELLY accepts the invitation to think speculatively in contemplation of representations of people of African descent in our cultural heritage
ALAN McGUIRE welcomes a biography of the French semiologist and philosopher
SALEEM BADAT and VASU REDDY introduce a new book about an outstanding interpreter of the world, and an activist scholar committed to changing society
HENRY BELL is provoked by a book that looks toward, but does not fully explore the question of who gets to imagine the shapes of cities to come