A beautifully illustrated portrait of the lifestyles, cultures, arts and ornaments of peoples in the Horn of Africa such as the Hamar, the Surma, the Karo, the Somali, and the Rashaida amongst others. Refs, 320pp, UK. HARVILL, 1860462928

1990 Hardback

A concise edition exploring traditional African rites and rituals and wondrous ceremonies - baby namings, initiations, weddings, harvest blessings, coronations, exorcisms, funerals and more - pictured with intimacy, knowledge and skill. Foreword by Malidoma Patrice Some. With CD of ceremonial music. Two volume also edition available. 461 photos in full colour, index, bib, maps, 400pp, USA. ABRAMS, 0810934841

500 photographs by African photographers and black photographers from the USA, Canada, Brazil, the Caribbean, Europe, and the Indian Ocean. Includes essays and biographies of the artists. 432pp, FRANCE. REVUE NOIR, 2909571491

A collection of erotic photographs with African women as its subject. Text by Calixthe Beyala. 160pp, GERMANY. TASCHEN.

2004 3822832057 Paperback

Sebastiao Salgado is one the most respected photojournalists working today, his reputation forged by decades of dedication and powerful black and white images of dispossessed and distressed people, his work most heavily concentrates on Africa, where he has shot more than 40 reportage works over a period of 30 years. From the Dinka peoples in Sudan and the Himba in Namibia to gorillas and volcanoes in the Great Lakes Region, Salgado shows us all facets of African life today. This book brings together his photos of Africa in three parts. The first concentrates on the southern part of the continent (Mozambique, Malawi, Angola, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Namibia), the second on the Great Lakes region (Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya), and the third on the Sub-Saharan region (Burkina Faso, Mali, Sudan, Somalia, Chad, Mauritania, Senegal, Ethiopia). Text by Mia Couto, who describes how today's Africa reflects the effects of colonization as well as the consequences of economic, social, and environmental crises. 335pp, GERMANY. TASCHEN.

Over thirty years Angela Fisher and Carol Beckwith have photographed African people as they performed ceremonies, interacted with their families and friends, and worked. This selection of their best work is organised into chapters including the art of seduction, patterns of beauty, capacity to endure, wisdom of age, returning to the ancestors and joy of being. 358pp, USA. NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY, 079226830X

This eloquent and revealing book celebrates a vital and often ignored area of communication - hands. The renowned photographer Basil Pao, who has accompanied Michael Palin on his journeys from Pole to Pole, around the Pacific Rim, across the Sahara and through the Himalayas, presents a collection of his photographs taken en route, all of which focus on hands. Captions accompany each image detailing the owners' homes and lives. 24 African examples. 400pp, UK. THAMES & HUDSON.

A monograph of Hector Acebes best photographic work in Africa. Taken in Mali, Guinea, Kenya, Cameroon and Central Africa these ninety images includes striking portraits and landscapes. Includes a brief biography of Acebes and an essay placing his work in the context of other photographers working during the same time period. 144pp, USA. WASHINGTON U P, 0295984139

Examination of the role and use of photographic material in the colonial encounter and how Africans have taken up the media to express their own realities. Illustrated with b/w and colour photographs. Refs, 128pp, UK. Philip Wilson, 0856675512

A photographic journey amongst the planet's flourishing remote cultures. The African people described are the Himba, the Herero, the Maasai, the Turkana, the Samburu and the Berber. Bib, 192pp, UK. CONSTABLE & ROBINSON, 1841195456

Large format collection of the work of a Malian photographer, with informal group shots, mainly of the young in social situations. Evocative of Africa in the 'sixties and 'seventies. Includes a CD of the music to which they danced. B/w illus, 182pp, ITALY, SCALO

1998 3931141934 Hardback

Over the course of numerous voyages to the Omo Valley, Hans Silvester became fascinated by the beauty of the Surma, Mursi, Hamer and Kurma peoples, who share a taste for body painting and extravagant decorations borrowed from nature. For these people, flesh becomes a raw material on which wonderfully inventive decorative fantasies can be played out. Hans Silvester's photographs capture these accoutrements to form a parade of African fashion that is as rich as it is ephemeral. 160 col photos, 168pp, UK. THAMES & HUDSON.

Born in Cameroon in 1962, Fosso spent his early childhood in Nigeria, but in 1970, due to the Biafra war, he was forced to flee to Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic, where he started his career as a portrait photographer at the age of thirteen, using leftover film to shoot a series of self-portraits. He has since achieved international renown with his carefully staged, highly original self-portraits which demonstrate the possibility of changing the meaning of the human body through performances. His work undermines the traditional notion of identity, using a creativity and a fantasy space quite unusual in African photography. This volume accompanies the first monographic exhibition dedicated to Samuel Fosso's work. Text in English and Italian. 90 b/w, 36 col illus, 191pp, ITALY. FIVE CONTINENTS EDITIONS.

Large-format collection of studio portraits by a renowned Mali photographer of the post-war period. Stylish, simple and evocative of Mali society of the period. 295x240mm, 286pp, GERMANY. SCALO.

1997 3931141462 Hardback

A photographic study of South and East African people taken between the years 1870 and 1920. This is a collection of photographic and historical interest, but also a striking example of the colonial gaze. 144pp, SOUTH AFRICA. FERNWOOD PRESS [SOUTH AFRICA], 1874950598

Photographic study of the traditional peoples scattered across the deserts, plains, hills and forests of the Great Rift Valley. From the red-ochre-painted warriors of Samburu to the Mursi with their jutting lip-plates to the guinea-fowl-painted faces of the Karo, this magnificently illustrated book provides sweeping views of this wild landscape and its people, from the Gulf of Aden off the coast of Eritrea, across the Ethiopian highlands, and down to the great lakes and forests of Kenya, Tanzania and Malawi. 272pp, USA. ABRAMS.

These two commercial photographers took mesmerising portraits in Bamako, the capital of Mali, during the period before and after the country achieved independence from France in 1960. This book presents a range of these portraits as well as excerpts from recent interviews with the artists and an essay placing their work in the context of the history of portrait photography in West Africa since its beginnings in the 1840s. 72 b/w photos, Bib, 116pp. USA. Yale University Press.

2001 0300091885 Hardback