Raoul J. Granqvist

This book is the first to question both why and how the colonialist mythologies represented by the work of photographer Eliot Elisofon persist. It documents and discusses a heterogeneous practice of American coloniality of power as it explores Elisofon’s career as war photographer-correspondent and staff photographer for LIFE, filmmaker, author, artist, and collector of “primitive art” and sculpture. It focuses on three areas: Elisofon’s narcissism, voyeurism, and sexism; his involvement in the homogenizing of Western social orders and colonial legacies; and his enthused mission of “sending home” a mass of still-life photographs, annexed African artifacts, and assumed vintage knowledge. The book does not challenge his artistic merit or his fascinating personality; what it does question is his production and imagining of “difference.” As the text travels from World War II to colonialism, postcolonialism, and the Cold War, from Casablanca to Leopoldville (Kinshasa), it proves to be a necessarily strenuous and provocative trip.

»Bakom den lekfulla sensualiteten i Hemligheter hörs Nuruddin Farahs klagan över de gamla banden av släktskap som omvandlade till ideologi vållat sådan skada i Afrika. Kärlek, visar Farah, är viktigare än blod.« | NEW YORK TIMES33-årige Kalaman äger ett dataföretag i Mogadishu, men växte upp på landsbygden. Hans barndomsvän Sholoongo har nyligen återvänt från USA, där hon skaffat sig ett rykte som schaman. Nu avkräver Sholoongo av Kalaman ett mycket gammalt löfte - att han ska göra henne med barn. Det återuppväckta minnet sätter Kalamans identitet i gungning. Samtidigt hotar landet omkring dem att rämna i ett blodigt inbördeskrig.Hemligheter [1998] är den fristående sista delen av Nuruddin Farahs mästerliga romantrilogi »Blod i solen«. En mörk och grym berättelse om en familjs sönderfall i ett samhälle där blodsband blivit ideologi.I översättning av Lennart Olofsson och med ett nyskrivet förord av litteraturvetaren Raoul J. Granqvist.NURUDDIN FARAH, född 1945 i Baidoa, är en somalisk romanförfattare, novellist, dramatiker och översättare. Sedan länge räknas han till de mest betydande afrikanska författarna, översatt till ett tjugotal språk. 1998, samma år som »Blod i solen«-trilogin fullbordats, mottog han Neustadtpriset, ett av världens mest prestigefyllda litterära priser.

The present collection of essays sits in a broad "cultural studies" cum "visual studies" field of topical interest connecting the visual with a whole range of disciplines: art history, literary and historical analysis, aesthetic criticism, post-colonialism, media studies, gender studies, psychology, sociology - in their complex offerings and dressings. Image-making and its consumption are interrelated physical or sensuous acts that engage the total reservoir of our faculties. In this performative there is no ocularcentrism, this book claims; sight occupies no hegemony over the other senses. Touching, seeing, viewing, listening collaborate; the hand/eye of the "producer" and the eye/ear to the "viewer" co-operate and collapse into a moment of mutuality that lacks closure. The book points out visuality's co-operative, sensory and reconciling function in the everyday routines and the aesthetical manifestations of seeing, speaking, writing, and acting. It is also concerned with the socio-historical and colonial realm of visual experiences, from discussions of the power relations in portrait making (ingress, Madame de Senonnes), photography (Strömholm's photos of transsexuals), fashion companies (Sisley) to colonial iconography in South African autobiographies. The book should be useful for both students of visuality in culture formation as well as general readers interested in this new terrain of the multiperspective.

This book examines the operating of cultural work in postcolonial Nairobi from the view that it drives modernity, survival and processes of empowerment. It depicts a city of global and spatial aspirations, divided by a past that transcends its present. It is a neo-colonial and acquisitive city; Western cultural institutions dominate the marketplace. An associative aspect is the gendered city space (streets, bars, pubs), which is overwhelmingly masculine. The book demonstrates that women's marginalisation impacts variously on the city's texts, its fiction, theatre, and the iconography of the Matatu vehicle. The major theme of the book is the struggle for cultural recognition and authority. Strategies of social and political accommodation coalesce both creatively and antagonistically in this formulation of Kenyan self-identification.