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A Stranger's Pose
A mesmerising collection of striking travel snapshots
Through stories remembered and imagined, and images by acclaimed photographers, A Stranger's Pose draws the reader into a world of encounters in more than a dozen African towns. Iduma blends memoir, travelogue and storytelling in these fragments of a traveller’s journey across several African cities. Inspired by the author’s travels with photographers between 2011 and 2015, the author's own accounts are expanded to include other narratives about movement, estrangement, and intimacy. These include: an arrest in a market in N’djamena, being punished by a Gendarmes officer on a Cameroonian highway and meeting the famed photographer Malick Sidibe in Bamako.
Through stories remembered and imagined, and images by acclaimed photographers, A Stranger's Pose draws the reader into a world of encounters in more than a dozen African towns. Iduma blends memoir, travelogue and storytelling in these fragments of a traveller’s journey across several African cities. Inspired by the author’s travels with photographers between 2011 and 2015, the author's own accounts are expanded to include other narratives about movement, estrangement, and intimacy. These include: an arrest in a market in N’djamena, being punished by a Gendarmes officer on a Cameroonian highway and meeting the famed photographer Malick Sidibe in Bamako.
216 pages, Paperback
First published November 7, 2018
17 people are currently reading
505 people want to read
About the author
Emmanuel Iduma
22 books62 followersEmmanuel Iduma, born and raised in Nigeria, is a writer and art critic. He is the author of the novel The Sound of Things to Come and co-editor of Gambit: Newer African Writing. He has contributed essays on art and photography to a number of journals, magazines, and exhibition catalogues, including Guernica, ARTNews, ESOPUS, and The Trans-African, for which he works as managing editor. His interviews with photographers and writers have appeared in the Aperture blog, Wasafiri, and Africa is a Country. He co-founded and directs Saraba magazine.
Since 2011, he has worked with Invisible Borders, a trans-African organization based in Nigeria, and currently the director of publications. He played a major curatorial role in the group’s installation A Trans-African Worldspace at the 2015 Venice Biennale.
He was longlisted for the Kwani? Manuscript Prize in 2013. In 2015, he was writer-in-residence at the Danspace Project’s Platform in New York, L’appartement 22 in Rabat, and the Thread Residency in Sinthian, Senegal. In 2016, he was invited to contribute a travelogue for Carnegie International, 2018. A lawyer by training, he holds an MFA in Art Criticism and Writing from the School of Visual Arts, New York, where he is also a faculty member.
Since 2011, he has worked with Invisible Borders, a trans-African organization based in Nigeria, and currently the director of publications. He played a major curatorial role in the group’s installation A Trans-African Worldspace at the 2015 Venice Biennale.
He was longlisted for the Kwani? Manuscript Prize in 2013. In 2015, he was writer-in-residence at the Danspace Project’s Platform in New York, L’appartement 22 in Rabat, and the Thread Residency in Sinthian, Senegal. In 2016, he was invited to contribute a travelogue for Carnegie International, 2018. A lawyer by training, he holds an MFA in Art Criticism and Writing from the School of Visual Arts, New York, where he is also a faculty member.
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Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
October 16, 2018
A Strangers Pose is a masterpiece in travel writing. It is impossible not to feel connected with Iduma's introspections on the impact of the people, places and culture he visits.
The collection is visceral, observational and reflective.
It also reads like a personal reflection on people's responses to photographers and photography across different cultures. A necessary read.
The collection is visceral, observational and reflective.
It also reads like a personal reflection on people's responses to photographers and photography across different cultures. A necessary read.
September 16, 2021
Remembering is not a mere act of will.- Emmanuel
Each chapter is a snapshot, an experience, experiment and a questioning as our narrator moves between place and space, meeting old friends, acquaintances and making new connections as he goes from city to village to town in these nations.
Although Iduma uses poems and photographs to convey his travels, there is almost an academic interest that outweighs the personal. Almost as if he is examining what his presence brings or how it changes his surroundings. As I read, I cannot help but see the direct terseness of some statements and observations, as well as the poetic flow and meaning of others.
However, threaded throughout is a richness of people and interactions that he comes across and that prod memories and reflections.
Definitely an interesting read and melding of prose, poetry, and pictures.
-The ocean is the world, without partition and division, only depth and expanse.-
A blend of poetry, photographs, and recollections. Iduma relates his journeys with questions, reflections, history, literature in snapshots that are easily read yet leave the reader wanting more.
Each chapter is a snapshot, an experience, experiment and a questioning as our narrator moves between place and space, meeting old friends, acquaintances and making new connections as he goes from city to village to town in these nations.
Although Iduma uses poems and photographs to convey his travels, there is almost an academic interest that outweighs the personal. Almost as if he is examining what his presence brings or how it changes his surroundings. As I read, I cannot help but see the direct terseness of some statements and observations, as well as the poetic flow and meaning of others.
However, threaded throughout is a richness of people and interactions that he comes across and that prod memories and reflections.
Definitely an interesting read and melding of prose, poetry, and pictures.
-The ocean is the world, without partition and division, only depth and expanse.-
A blend of poetry, photographs, and recollections. Iduma relates his journeys with questions, reflections, history, literature in snapshots that are easily read yet leave the reader wanting more.
July 12, 2021
Part travelogue, part poetry, part personal reflections, dreams and photographs, A stranger’s pose is a series of short reflections on Emmanuel Iduma's non-linear journey across 22 African cities across the top half of the continent.
Emmanuel Iduma’s words feel like healing, the beauty of the cities and the spirit of its inhabitants. Other times, it cracks you wide open filling a hole that you didn't know was there. As the author says his job is to bear witness, so I think it's our job to read this and bear witness too.
Thousands of people daily continue to traverse many of the coastal cities hoping to cross the border to Europe. Some never leave these cities, and those who do, many will die making this perilous journey. Many end up in countries where they can't speak the language, some at the mercy of corrupt police, and some women end up in sex work.
The author makes several journeys over a few years, in groups or alone which heightens the sense of risk and danger. There are echoes of history all over, a reminder of the lasting impact of slavery and colonialism. I loved that it's also a photographic journey, sharing, recreating and writing about renowned photographers on the continent such as Malick Sidibe.
All through it, Emmanuel Iduma uses his tools, of photographs and notes observing these strangers, in his own words to "attempt to collapse distances, to make strangers intimate".
It's beautifully written and deeply moving.
Emmanuel Iduma’s words feel like healing, the beauty of the cities and the spirit of its inhabitants. Other times, it cracks you wide open filling a hole that you didn't know was there. As the author says his job is to bear witness, so I think it's our job to read this and bear witness too.
Thousands of people daily continue to traverse many of the coastal cities hoping to cross the border to Europe. Some never leave these cities, and those who do, many will die making this perilous journey. Many end up in countries where they can't speak the language, some at the mercy of corrupt police, and some women end up in sex work.
The author makes several journeys over a few years, in groups or alone which heightens the sense of risk and danger. There are echoes of history all over, a reminder of the lasting impact of slavery and colonialism. I loved that it's also a photographic journey, sharing, recreating and writing about renowned photographers on the continent such as Malick Sidibe.
All through it, Emmanuel Iduma uses his tools, of photographs and notes observing these strangers, in his own words to "attempt to collapse distances, to make strangers intimate".
It's beautifully written and deeply moving.
November 8, 2024
I have never read anything like this before. This book contains beautiful and timeless writing that had me returning over and over again till I was done reading in a short time.
I aspire to be able to craft words like this someday!
I aspire to be able to craft words like this someday!
November 8, 2024
Emmanuel Iduma's 'A Stranger's Pose' is a truly unique and beautiful book. Part travelogue, part poetry and part musings of a truly imaginative and tender soul. He takes us on a journey like no other with his memories and reflections, interspersed with photographs, of his journeys across African cities, from Dakar to Douala, Bamako to Benin.
With themes of identity and the meaning of home this book is an intimate portrait of a mind trying to understand his own relationship with travel, language and translation.
The chapters are short and pointed with a lyricism that is often dreamlike.
I absolutely loved this book. Highly recommend.
With themes of identity and the meaning of home this book is an intimate portrait of a mind trying to understand his own relationship with travel, language and translation.
The chapters are short and pointed with a lyricism that is often dreamlike.
I absolutely loved this book. Highly recommend.
Read
March 3, 2023Reminiscent of Sontag and Berger. Delicious.
October 30, 2018
Emmanuel Iduma's A Stranger's Pose is a beautiful and necessary book: There is so few (published) African travel writing and this is book is a stellar example. Small vignettes, between prose and poetry, tell from Iduma's travels through several towns in several African countries. This is travelogue, memoir, and essay. Iduma reflects on traveling, different places, and the people we meet. But as much as this is a book about traveling it is one about photography. Not only are photographs included but Iduma interrogates the history of photography, the ways pictures are taken and the connections photography (or just the presence of a camera) can foster or disrupt.
December 26, 2018
A very different kind of travel book, combining photos, their backstory, poems, stories and the traveller's own memories of crossing sub-Saharan Africa. Some reflections are powerfully perceptive and moving, others anecdotal. More interesting if you have some familiarity with African geography and history.
March 2, 2019
There were some real jewels of passages in this, dreamlike yet visceral descriptions that I loved but overall somehow the narrative thread on which to hang these vignettes was not clear, at least to me. Very much like Teju Cole's writing on walking New York City streets and ruminating.
April 7, 2019
Emmanuel Iduma’s A Stranger’s Pose is a discontinuous journey that zigzags across parts of north Africa. As a traveler who often lacks the local language, Iduma and the people he meets are constantly forced to assess each other with little or no language. The camera that he carries can be perceived as a threat or an invitation. Finding a common language—even if it is simply gestural— is the first priority.
The book consists of seventy-seven short pieces that include brief stories, conversations, dreams, reflections, poems, and photographs that are credited to Iduma and a dozen or so others. The book covers a swath of the continent that spans from Casablanca and Rabat in the North to Dakar in the West and Addis Ababa in the east. The seeming lack of structure, be it geographic or temporal, struck me as one of the book’s strengths, because it instantly converts the reader into a traveler, waking up in a new place daily, coming across strangers in a strange land every few pages. As Rebecca Solnit’s book A Field Guide to Getting Lost constantly reminds us, travel is a kind of dream state in which we are unmoored from almost everything familiar.
The book is the result of numerous trips, some made alone and some with a “rotating group of photographers, visual artists, and writers” called the Invisible Borders Trans-African Photographers’ Organization. And thus the book vacillates between the collective experiences of the group and the more personal, sometimes riskier experiences that Iduma has when he travels alone, negotiating such things as road blocks, corrupt police, and drug dealers. All of this—the group travel, the continual movement, the uncertain strangers—forces Iduma to stay focused on the surface. He describes people’s poses, the look in their eyes, what their hands do. He has the photographer’s conviction in the visual, but often I wanted him to linger, to write more, to look deeper. But that’s another book. In this one, Iduma is content to mostly look for the decisive moment and move on. There is a slightly longer review at my blog Vertigo.
The book consists of seventy-seven short pieces that include brief stories, conversations, dreams, reflections, poems, and photographs that are credited to Iduma and a dozen or so others. The book covers a swath of the continent that spans from Casablanca and Rabat in the North to Dakar in the West and Addis Ababa in the east. The seeming lack of structure, be it geographic or temporal, struck me as one of the book’s strengths, because it instantly converts the reader into a traveler, waking up in a new place daily, coming across strangers in a strange land every few pages. As Rebecca Solnit’s book A Field Guide to Getting Lost constantly reminds us, travel is a kind of dream state in which we are unmoored from almost everything familiar.
The book is the result of numerous trips, some made alone and some with a “rotating group of photographers, visual artists, and writers” called the Invisible Borders Trans-African Photographers’ Organization. And thus the book vacillates between the collective experiences of the group and the more personal, sometimes riskier experiences that Iduma has when he travels alone, negotiating such things as road blocks, corrupt police, and drug dealers. All of this—the group travel, the continual movement, the uncertain strangers—forces Iduma to stay focused on the surface. He describes people’s poses, the look in their eyes, what their hands do. He has the photographer’s conviction in the visual, but often I wanted him to linger, to write more, to look deeper. But that’s another book. In this one, Iduma is content to mostly look for the decisive moment and move on. There is a slightly longer review at my blog Vertigo.
November 25, 2018
I didn’t know what to expect of this book going into it; it’s a compendium in the truest sense. A compendium of thoughts/reflections, photographs, poems, humans, cities, and the many stories that unfold amidst and with them all.
I really like the format of the book and how it’s not tethered to a certain story arc or by an agenda that guides the author, as well as reader. The way it is allows readers to witness and go along the journey themselves, appreciating what their travels offer, evolving and preserving, restless and at ease in the undefined.
I really like the format of the book and how it’s not tethered to a certain story arc or by an agenda that guides the author, as well as reader. The way it is allows readers to witness and go along the journey themselves, appreciating what their travels offer, evolving and preserving, restless and at ease in the undefined.
May 31, 2020
In this time of social distance and isolation, it’s healing to be able to travel vicariously with Emmanuel Iduma. He is generous with his experience and perspective. I will try to follow his way of looking at photographs, I know that.
Early on he says “I hoped... that the cities appeared untethered to their countries- an atlas of a borderless world.” For all that he often looks at the troubled experiences of prospective emigrants to other countries, I think he captured something of the link between cities that can feel distinct and unrelated to national boundaries.
Early on he says “I hoped... that the cities appeared untethered to their countries- an atlas of a borderless world.” For all that he often looks at the troubled experiences of prospective emigrants to other countries, I think he captured something of the link between cities that can feel distinct and unrelated to national boundaries.
September 21, 2025
‘To live, is to die a little.’
Finished Emmanuel Iduma’s ‘A stranger’s pose’, this morning and couldn’t help thinking this would be what an autobiography of Andrew Eseibo’s life would read like.
Andrew of course, being one of the most interesting Africans alive. That itinerant photographer lifestyle is unique.
There’s so much of the continent that’s untold which isn’t to be confused with unknown. But people like him, find their way to these places and give a peek into their lives via photography.
The last true nomad.
Finished Emmanuel Iduma’s ‘A stranger’s pose’, this morning and couldn’t help thinking this would be what an autobiography of Andrew Eseibo’s life would read like.
Andrew of course, being one of the most interesting Africans alive. That itinerant photographer lifestyle is unique.
There’s so much of the continent that’s untold which isn’t to be confused with unknown. But people like him, find their way to these places and give a peek into their lives via photography.
The last true nomad.
June 27, 2020
An exquisite travelogue and much more, Emmanuel Iduma's A Stranger's Pose defies categorization. It is also poetry, mini-memoir and photo essay. You travel with him across Africa, from Dakar to Casablanca. Characters hover, ghostly. Even the photos float between reality and dream. Nothing is quite real; all is a state of mind. A beautiful book by a Nigerian artist with so many gifts that even he doesn't seem to be quite real.
January 12, 2019
A wonderfully reflective, meandering travelogue of sorts, a poetic remembering of the author’s travels in Nigeria and several other African countries. Illustrated with photographs, many portraits of the author himself, this is a multi-stranded essay about travel, family, migrants, language and cultural differences, and lost love. More to come.
A loner review can be found at: https://roughghosts.com/2019/01/11/ta...
A loner review can be found at: https://roughghosts.com/2019/01/11/ta...
June 22, 2023
This book is a beauty, a treasure. Here, Emmanuel Iduma journeys through several African countries, observing cultures, religions, speckles of human life and fleeting moments, which all coalesce into a commentary on human life and the primal nature of journeys. This is a perfect book, as such books go.
November 7, 2021
I think this just wasn't my cup of tea. But I do think the writing style and the flow were pretty great. Although this only got 2 stars I would still recommend this book to people. I listened to the audiobook of this and was well done.
February 8, 2020
A coalescence of diverse forms and thoughts and experiences into a single unit of remarkable writing. A delightful read.
July 23, 2020
Some profound insights into West Africa
An itinerant writer and photographer reflects on his travels through various cities in West Africa in this series of essays on love, family, tradition, place, and passion.
An itinerant writer and photographer reflects on his travels through various cities in West Africa in this series of essays on love, family, tradition, place, and passion.
November 2, 2020
A melancholy journey through mist, or dust.
June 19, 2021
Relatos de un viaje por África, ciudades y personas mezcladas con fotos.
May 14, 2023
Emmanuel Iduma is a master of poetry here. The anecdotes are filled with memories, fiction, poetry and life lived so deeply that it reaches straight to the heart.
January 13, 2026
saved me at my lowest. taught me to ‘write’ again.
August 24, 2021
The book is made up of seventy-six short, punchy, poetic and untitled chapters. I like the fact that the title of the book captures its essence outrightly . In keeping with the style of writing, it raises the salient but unvoiced question/ theme that runs through the book: "What is the place of a stranger in a city?"
The writing style is experimental and deeply evocative. Each chapter is set in a different city. There are vibrant, graphic descriptions of the people, lifestyle and culture obtainable in the place being spotlighted. From Khartoum to Nouakchott; N’djamena to Lome; Douala to Casablanca, the reader is an invisible witness the interactions between the author and the locals. Sometimes, there are a variety of monochrome photographs which more often than not, are accompanied by very detailed image descriptions.
In essence, A Stranger's Pose is a melting point of both visual and written forms of art. It celebrates the role of a photographer in preserving identity and culture by freezing time and capturing moments.
It's totally worth your time.
I included some of my favorite quotes from the book in the full post on my blog: https://bajreviews.com/a-strangers-po...
The writing style is experimental and deeply evocative. Each chapter is set in a different city. There are vibrant, graphic descriptions of the people, lifestyle and culture obtainable in the place being spotlighted. From Khartoum to Nouakchott; N’djamena to Lome; Douala to Casablanca, the reader is an invisible witness the interactions between the author and the locals. Sometimes, there are a variety of monochrome photographs which more often than not, are accompanied by very detailed image descriptions.
In essence, A Stranger's Pose is a melting point of both visual and written forms of art. It celebrates the role of a photographer in preserving identity and culture by freezing time and capturing moments.
It's totally worth your time.
I included some of my favorite quotes from the book in the full post on my blog: https://bajreviews.com/a-strangers-po...
July 22, 2020
The organizing logic of the book is not guidance so much as it is evocation. It asks readers to submit to the pleasures of wandering without the guarantee of a fixed destination.
With reverence and sincerity, Iduma relays the words of the celebrated Malian photographer Malick Sidibé: “Photography is like hunting.” Iduma sits at Sidibé’s feet; he offers the reader a glimpse into the late visionary’s life and philosophies. In A Stranger’s Pose, as in life, the only constant is death.
The book hums with a kind of gorgeous melancholy. Iduma recounts the deaths of many people he encounters, often writing letters to the deceased or their relatives after encountering a photograph of the departed.
The novel asks readers to submit to the pleasures of wandering without guarantee of a fixed destination, says 'imagination can be delicate, imposing a protective decorum, a photograph on raw fact and confront us with what we where peharps avoiding'.
A travelogue, part photo essay that traces Indumas travels around Africa through snapshots and short written essays.
With reverence and sincerity, Iduma relays the words of the celebrated Malian photographer Malick Sidibé: “Photography is like hunting.” Iduma sits at Sidibé’s feet; he offers the reader a glimpse into the late visionary’s life and philosophies. In A Stranger’s Pose, as in life, the only constant is death.
The book hums with a kind of gorgeous melancholy. Iduma recounts the deaths of many people he encounters, often writing letters to the deceased or their relatives after encountering a photograph of the departed.
The novel asks readers to submit to the pleasures of wandering without guarantee of a fixed destination, says 'imagination can be delicate, imposing a protective decorum, a photograph on raw fact and confront us with what we where peharps avoiding'.
A travelogue, part photo essay that traces Indumas travels around Africa through snapshots and short written essays.
Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews