Product Details
Hardcover
144 pages
Aperture
Published 2000
From Booklist
Saxgren is a well-received Danish photojournalist who supplies not only the photos but also the text for this sobering album featuring the children of Nicaragua that were caught in the social disintegration of the country following the devastating civil war of the 1980s. His grainy, graphic shots follow the denizens of Managua's Callejon de la Muerte, "Death Alley," a dirt path lined with shanties serving as houses of prostitution. Homelessness and hunger reign in Death Alley; crime and violence visit the place on an hourly basis. Saxgren's photographs are disturbing and haunting, and his text sets the scene for them with perfectly concise detail as he walks Death Alley with us and introduces us to lives sad but in their way also brave. After all, the name of the game is survival, and that is, ironically, what is going on here in Death Alley. Brad Hooper
Copyright ¬ American Library Association. All rights reserved
About the Author
Henrik Saxgren's previous book, Point of View, was published by Aperture. He lives in Copenhagen and is a member of the 2Maj photographer's agency.
Book Description
Solomon's House is Danish photojournalist Henrik Saxgren's harrowing account of the dissolution of the social fabric in Nicaragua in the years following the revolution. The book opens with a Preface by Nicaraguan-born Bianca Jagger, an ardent spokesperson for human rights and children's issues in Central America.
Despite widespread poverty and the tensions of warfare present during Saxgren's first visits to Nicaragua in the 1980s, basic standards of decency and family unity prevailed. Upon his return to the country in the mid-1990s, Saxgren found vast numbers of children living on the streets and trapped in a downward spiral of dependency.
At the heart of this story is life in the shantytowns, where teenage girls pay rent to sixty-year-old men through prostitution. Having turned to these men to find a way off the streets, the girls have discovered a dark semblance of family unity under the direst of circumstances.
Through unforgettable photographs and stories, Solomon's House offers a poignant revelation of the fragile nature of human society. |
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