Alert Me

Want us to e-mail you when this item becomes available?

More Buying Choices

Get it for less! Order it used

Have one to sell? Sell yours here

One Hundred Years of Darkness: A Photographic Journey into the Heart of Congo

See larger image and other views

Share your own customer images

Publisher: learn how customers can search inside this book.

One Hundred Years of Darkness: A Photographic Journey into the Heart of Congo (Hardcover)

by Jon Swain (Foreword, Author), Marcus Bleasdale (Author, Photographer)

5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Don McCullin

by Don McCullin

4.7 out of 5 stars (7) �11.67

I, Tokyo

by Jacob Aue Sobol

�16.50

The Photographer's Eye

by John Szarkowski

5.0 out of 5 stars (3) �9.64

As I Was Dying

by Paolo Pellegrin

5.0 out of 5 stars (2)

› Explore similar items

Product details

Hardcover: 144 pages
Publisher: Pirogue Press (24 Jul 2002)
Language English
ISBN-10: 0954301501
ISBN-13: 978-0954301507
Product Dimensions: 29.7 x 25.1 x 2.3 cm

Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)

Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 696,821 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)
Popular in this category:
#23 in Books > Travel & Holiday > Countries & Regions > Africa > Democratic Republic of Congo

Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

Product Description

Michela Wrong, Author of IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF MR KURTZ

Marcus Bleasdale has produced a sensitive but by no means sentimental portrait of an extraordinary nation and its thwarted people.

Professor Robert Hampson, Royal Holloway, University of London, Conrad Editor for Penguin Books

Marcus Bleasdale has clearly felt the "continued vibration" of Conrad’s words… his photographs also attest to the remarkable spirit of the Congolese people.

See all Product Description

Tag this product

(What's this?)

Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items.

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

	50% buy River of Time 5.0 out of 5 stars (11) �5.98
	26% buy A Passage to Congo: Photographs by Doctor Emile Muller 1923-1938 �21.25
	19% buy In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz: Living on the Brink of Disaster in the Congo 4.9 out of 5 stars (14) �5.36
	6% buy As I Was Dying 5.0 out of 5 stars (2)

Explore similar items

Customer Reviews

1 Review

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

Average Customer Review

5.0 out of 5 stars (1 customer review)

Share your thoughts with other customers:

Create your own review

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stunning, provocative images of a Congo journey, 27 Aug 2002

By	Simon James (London) - See all my reviews

Fifth longest river in the world and second only to the Nile on the African continent, the Congo river is 2720 miles long. It is also sub-Saharan Africa’s greatest thoroughfare: a living roadway up which, even at the driest times of the year, barges in excess of 1000 tons are able to penetrate more than 650 miles. But the heart of darkness referred to in the title of Conrad’s famous story didn’t originate in the unexplored far reaches of the river. Instead it slid against the flow towards the interior during the vast region’s exploitation by nineteenth century colonialists. Conrad witnessed this rape first hand in 1890, was horrified by it, and Heart of Darkness was the parable by which he described its effect upon him..

One hundred years on from first publication of Conrad’s classic story the photographer Marcus Bleasdale found himself sitting on the banks of the river reflecting on the manner in which the inheritors of the colonial past have so easily adopted the manner of their European predecessors. In his introduction to One Hundred years of Darkness he talks of witnessing through Conrad’s lens the “anonymous lives” of today’s Congolese: “as desperate and as dire today” as in the time of Conrad’s fictional creation Kurtz.

Bleasdale describes his journey in monochrome. Colour is cheaper to produce today but Pirogue Press have spared no expense, reproducing Bleasdale's imagery in delicate tri-tone. And the words of Conrad’s story intertwine themselves with Bleasdale’s contemporary captions. Bleasdale’s own journeys on the river do not however adopt the traditional photojournalistic narrative, the images instead revealing their layered secrets slowly and in details often placed at the edges of the frame. Captions describe the subject of individual pictures as we learn of child soldiers, millions displaced by wars rarely mentioned in Europe, salaried employees of the UN sunning themselves beside hotel swimming pools, children born with Malaria and abandoned by parents, ferryboats that remain the region’s lifeblood and pygmies: the original inhabitants of the Congo, apparently still renowned as trackers. But taken as a whole the photographs combine to bear witness to the greater truth: the darkness first witnessed by Conrad remains to this day.

A fascinating book and far from the last I imagine we will see from the camera of Mr Bleasdale.

Simon James

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review

› See all customer reviews...

.jsOffDisplayBlock { display: block; } .jsOffDisplayInline { display: inline; } .jsOffVisibility { visibility: visible; } .jsOnDisplayBlock { display: none; } .jsOnDisplayNoneBlock { display: block; } .jsOnDisplayNoneInline { display: inline; } .jsOnDisplayInline { display: none; } .jsOnVisibility { visibility: hidden; } .jqOnDisplayBlock { display: none; } .jqOnDisplayInline { display: none; } .jqOnVisibility { visibility: hidden; } .jqOnDisplayNoneBlock { display: block; } .jqOnDisplayNoneInline { display: inline; }