Currently Africa in the Photobook is contributing to the section dedicated to South African photobooks on the website South African History Online initiated by Afrapix photographer Omar Badsha.

The book
In recent years a new popular genre of books on photobooks emerged. The three-volume series The Photobook: A History by Martin Parr and Gerry Badger. Since the publication of this serie many books followed and could be regarded more or less as supplemental material. Many of these books focus on a particular region, for example Japanese Photobooks of the 1960s and 70s (2009), The Latin American Photobook (2011), The Dutch Photobook (2012) and the yet to be published The Belgian Photobook (2019). Although The Belgian Photobook does include a chapter on Belgian photobooks on Belgian Congo, no title on African photobooks or photobook about Africa has been published up until now.

Some years ago book collector Ben Krewinkel decided to focus mainly on books made in or about Africa dealing with African subjects. In the last decade this has led to a unique collection containing more than five hundred books, among which are some very rare and historically important titles. Initially many of the books were only displayed on the website Africa in the Photobook to allow a wide audience to experience the contents of the books.
Apart from a selection of spreads and bibliographical information, the website doesn’t contain much further information.

Currently Ben Krewinkel is researching a wide selection of the displayed books, to be able to put them in a proper (art) historical context that should result in the two-volume reference work on this topic Africa in the Photobook. Both volumes deal with the changing perception of the continent as depicted in the photobook from the period 1880-1995. Therefore many books that might be considered less interesting as objects of art, will nevertheless be included just because of their historical value.

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