Grace´s Song by Anthony Maturin and the Village Poets: coffee table, 152 pp of A4 sepia photographs with text, which includes verse from black township and village poets, on facing pages. If you saw Anthony Maturin´s earlier book of photographs from Cambodia you will need no persuading to sample his new book, `Grace´s Song´. This time he has put together a collection of sepia photos from Eastern Cape Province in South Africa. He has been living there for the past two years as a VSA volunteer. Almost all the photos are of people. People who are being helped by local NGO´s. And the few that are not of people show some of the material poverty which is their life. And the purpose of the book is to `celebrate the human dignity found in poverty´. The quality of these photos is quite outstanding and as I commented on the ones in his last collection, they are very reminiscent of the great photographer, Sebastiao Salgado. The poems add another degree of poignancy to what is otherwise simple brutal poverty. Human dignity shows itself more than in our comfortable Western world where the media have captured the public conscience and consumerism and celebrity rule. And what shines through in the photos is the humanity, humanity bearing the suffering not only of poverty, but also of the widespread illness of HIV/AIDS and the losses of so many family through it. John Gleisner. Publisher: Anthony Maturin Year: 2011 Binding: Paperback ISBN: 9780473181581 Condition: Good Description: Large. Note: This image is from a stock photo and may differ from the actual cover.
