AFRICA

Παρουσίαση

It has been 59 years since Alan Paton, the South African author, wrote his highly acclaimed novel, Cry, the Beloved Country. It paints a portrait of the darkest days of apartheid, yet its outlook is anything but defeatist. The shedding of tears invoked in the title is not intended to suggest dejected capitulation. It is an invitation to weep, but with an eye to the future, cathartic and liberating. In the end, Paton offers up the shedding of tears as a spark of hope.
Long gone now are those troubled days of institutionalized state racism, that era when, as the author put it, blood was a "way of thinking." The Republic of South Africa has since embarked on its journey as a rainbow nation. Alan Paton did not live to see Nelson Mandela emerge triumphant from the prison gates and go on to become one of the most respected political figures in modern times, an icon of a continent's battle to assert its dignity.
Sebastiao Salgado visited Africa during both the days of tears and the time of the spark. He witnessed dramatic events, the unfolding of a tragedy and also the first glimmer of hope. He spent time in my country and in Angola and was able to record the earliest steps on the path to liberty, in the wake of five centuries of colonial rule. When Sebastiao Salgado asked me to write about these photographs, I accepted with the enthusiasm of a teenager. I already knew all about the brilliance of the Brazilian photographer's work. I have his books at home and they lured me into resuming my travels. (ΑΠΟ ΤΗΝ ΠΑΡΟΥΣΙΑΣΗ ΤΗΣ ΕΚΔΟΣΗΣ)