PARADISE INC.

(Hardback)

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Paradise Inc. is a love declaration to Africa and the expression of the fear that, maybe, it could desappear. Nostalgic for an Africa where the presence of man was not yet completely detrimental to the wild world and a flamboyant Nature, Guillaume Bonn offers with this long-term work a completely expressive vision of the paradox - of schizophrenia - of all those who hope that the continent can retain its beauty while looking to the future. How to show the dangers of a modernity on the move How to illustrate this will that PARADISE can, tomorrow, continue to endure, even though the African continent is the most dynamic part of the world on the planet, the one where the growth potential is the highest How to show the significant tension between an imaginary carried by the sublimation of what was and a reality that catches up with us Seeking to free himself from the shackles of a vision that would be purely colonialist or Western, Guillaume Bonn documents photograph after photograph the profound changes that are at work in East Africa. Playing with the codes of the known, playing with commonplaces, distilling step by step the irruption of the world of tomorrow in each of his images, he succeeds in restoring the vertigo that is his, he who lives each day intensely these radical transformations of the African world. Whether it is the transformation of landscapes, the unstoppable expansion of cities or the gradual disappearance of the wild world, the documentary work of Guillaume Bonn brings an eminently singular look at this Africa he knows so well. Looking both outward and inward, he captures life among the sprawling cities and multitudinous conurbations of the continent, turning the legacy of the continent's history into the source of resonant new myths and dreamscapes and exploring questions of modernity, wildlife, future society.

Reviews

"This is a book I have been waiting to read, and the author is the person I have been longing to talk to. Guillaume, you raise very pertinent issues that are not new to the world but rather have been ignored by the world. -- Ezekiel Ole Katato, Maasai Elder, Kenya

Author Bio

Guillaume Bonn, an award-winning documentary photographer, writer, filmmaker, and picture editor, has dedicated the last three decades to capturing the complexities of conflicts, social issues, and environmental challenges across Africa. Born in Madagascar and raised in the Comoros Islands, Djibouti, and Kenya, he brings

a unique perspective rooted in his

French and Malagasy heritage and

his diverse upbringing.

Jon Lee Anderson is an American author and journalist who began his career in the early nineteeneighties, reporting on Central America's civil wars.

As a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1998, he has reported from Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Somalia, Angola, Liberia, Libya, Central African Republic, Mali, South Sudan, Zimbabwe, Brazil, Cuba, Venezuela, Sri Lanka, and many other countries. Anderson has also profiled a number of international public figures, including Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Augusto Pinochet, Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and King Juan Carlos.

Anderson is also the author of a biography on the iconic Marxist revolutionary Ernesto Che Guevara. Anderson has written several other books, including Guerrillas: Journeys in the Insurgent World, The Lion's Grave: Dispatches from Afghanistan, and The Fall of Baghdad.

Anderson is currently writing his next book, a biography of Fidel Castro.

Anderson is one of the most respected American Journalists of his generation.