Images by the Congolese photographer and video artist Sammy Baloji exploring colonial architecture and copper mines in the city of Lubumbashi and the South-Eastern Katanga province of the Democratic Republic of Congo. For Baloji and others of his generation, who were born after the country's independ-ence in 1960, the colonial period was a time when hard work transformed a sparsely inhabited area into a modern city. In contrast, Baloji's images portray an industrial environment haunted by the physical absence of humanity: no one is inside the buildings, machines are rusting and idle and train tracks sit without trains. Like many people in the Congo today, Baloji aims to understand and reconnect these two strikingly different eras. 48pp, USA. MUSEUM FOR AFRICAN ART.

From the mouth of the majestic Congo River to its source, from the Atlantic Ocean to Katanga, the great traveller and photographer Angelo Turconi reveals the territory and the atmosphere that reigns in its bush, tropical jungle and East African hill country. He shows us life as it is lived in the interior of the country, captured in all its spontaneity in extraordinary images of everyday scenes and great cultural ceremonies of the peoples that have inhabited the Congo for centuries. IN ENGLISH & FRENCH. 200 col illus, 400pp, ITALY. SILVANA EDITORIALE.

Uncompromising photojournalism, blending documentary testimony with the development of a singular photographic aesthetic. This book captures the transitions in the Democratic Republic of Congo between the rule of Belgian King Léopold II and the fall of Mobutu. 56pp, FRANCE. FILIGRANES EDITIONS.

2004 2914381913 Paperback

Brings together contributions by international researchers, among them Jan Vansina, Mary Jo Arnoldi and Stephen Ellis, on various questions related to the colonial era in the Belgian Congo, following a major exhibition at the Royal Museum for Central Africa, Tervuren in 2005. It offers a broad range of perspectives and gives a clear view on current knowledge and research in the field. Very well illustrated in full colour and black and white photographs. IN FRENCH. 270pp, BELGIUM. ROYAL MUSEUM FOR CENTRAL AFRICA.

Retraces Joseph Conrad's journey up the River Congo, documenting the people, environment and social politics of contemporary Congo, a century on from Conrad's indictment of colonialism. BNS, 144 pp.80 tritone images, UK. ART BOOKS INTERNATIONAL.

2002 0954301501 Hardback

A collection of photographs taken by Doctor Emile Muller (1891-1976) in the Congo provinces of the Kasai and Katanga, territories of the Chokwe, Luba, Bashibushong and Basalampasu peoples. The privileged witnesses of esoteric ceremonies that are rarely photographed, his images are precious from an ethnographic and historical point of view, and reveal a fine aesthetic sense. 144pp, ITALY. FIVE CONTINENTS EDITIONS.

Marcus Bleasdale has been following the war in Congo in all its horror and grotesqueness for almost a decade a war which has claimed more than four million victims to date. Bleasdale's first book on Congo, ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF DARKNESS was voted best photo journalistic book of the year by the American Photo District News in 2002. With a foreword by John le Carre. 117 duotone photos, 240pp, NETHERLANDS. SCHILT PUBLISHING.

Unpublished photographs from the twenties and thirties taken by the first professional photographer to travel throughout the interior of the Congo and to visit neighbouring countries. 550 b/w illus, 237pp, ITALY. SKIRA, 8884910080