Betty
Press

I Am Because We Are

I Am Because We Are: African Wisdom in Image and Proverb will be published in September 2011. It will include 125 black and white images selected from my African work taken all over East and West Africa since 1987 and combined with related African proverbs compiled by Annetta Miller. The images of daily life deal with knowledge, cooperation, love, beauty, friendship, hope, humor, sorrow, happiness, gratitude, dance, tradition, faith, peace, war, death and human relationships. These are the same themes found in African proverbial language: thus the idea of coupling the images with proverbs. Together they offer a powerful expression of African life and the universality of human emotions, ideas, and knowledge.

The book highlights, along with the photographs, the importance of proverbs which were used, and are still being used in African society today. This book will make a significant educational and artistic contribution to the appreciation and understanding of African culture and society as well as our own.