BOOK ANNOUNCEMENT: A Stranger’s Pose by Emmanuel Iduma
PUB DATE: World 16th OCTOBER 2018 & USA 7th November 2018
“Emmanuel Iduma writes with lyricism and stunning clarity, a lush yet elegant style that resists categorization… Only one word can hold it all, beautiful. This book is beautiful.” —Chris Abani, author of The Secret History of Las Vegas and The Face: Cartography of the Void
“Iduma’s book is a marvel.” —David Levi Strauss, author of Words Not Spent Today Buy Smaller Images Tomorrow
“A refreshing new voice in travel writing.” —Noo Saro-Wiwa, author of Looking for Transwonderland: Travels in Nigeria
“Dream of a perfect book, a ballad with all the lyrics remembered. That book is in your hands.” Teju Cole, author of Every Day is for the Thief and Open City
This stunning new book from award-winning African publisher Cassava Republic Press shakes up the travel writing genre. In this remarkable new work of narrative non-fiction, writer and art critic Emmanuel Iduma reinvents the notion of African travel writing. This meditation on life on the road, and the difficulties found in traversing the continent, is one of very few examples of travel writing on Africa written by an African writer. With a foreword by Teju Cole, Emmanuel Iduma takes the reader on a journey across over 20 African cities in this book. Iduma’s evocative prose is interspersed with over 40 striking black and white photographs from acclaimed African photographers, including the famed Malick Sidibe, whom he met in Bamako.
Key points:
• An immersive and poetic travelogue that fills a glaring need for more travel literature by nonEuropean writers. A Stranger’s Pose presents a portrait of Africa through the eyes of a decolonised millennial.
• Known for his essays on art and photography, Iduma turns his perceptive eye on to photographs, as well as the stories he hears on his travel, and delves into questions about love, life, migration, translation, heartbreak and personal tragedy.
• Through his portrayal of fleeting encounters, Iduma captures the melancholy that comes from travelling as a constant stranger. This is coming at a time where despite social connections being a click away, there’s increased conversation about an epidemic of loneliness.
• The book comprises mesmerising vignettes on the photographers, people and migrants (including those making the treacherous journey to Europe) that he encounters in his travel across Africa, in search of home, safety and self-exploration. BOOK ANNOUNCEMENT A Stranger’s Pose by Emmanuel Iduma PUB DATE: World 16th OCTOBER 2018 & USA 7th November 2018
• Iduma’s difficulties travelling between the different cities exposes how divided Africa is, as he recounts the struggle he faces to find visas, the cost of intra-continental travel and the alienation of moving between languages.
• Iduma meets Idrissa, a Malian and perpetual migrant travelling across several African cities in search of better prospects, who reminds us that it is in fact within the continent that most African migration occurs, even as European nations call for stronger border control.
• A Stranger’s Pose was named on Electric Literature as ‘one to watch’ on a list of African ‘literary gems’ in July 2018.
About the author
Emmanuel Iduma is editor of Saraba Magazine, and a faculty member of the MFA Art Writing program at the School of Visual Arts, New York. He is the author of The Sound of Things to Come (The Mantle, 2016) and co-editor of Gambit: Newer African Writing (The Mantle, 2014). His essays on art and photography have been published widely. Emmanuel co-curated the Nigerian Pavilion at the 2017 Venice Biennale.
For media enquiries and interview requests please contact Lynette Lisk at Cassava Republic Press on 020 7405 7422 or [email protected]