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Vanishing Africa

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Vanishing Africa
AuthorLeni Riefenstahl
Original titleMein Afrika
IllustratorLeni Riefenstahl
LanguageEnglish (translated), German
GenreIllustrations
PublisherList (Germany) Harmony (US)
Publication date
1982
Publication placeUnited States, Germany
Published in English
1982
Media typePrint (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages232
ISBN0-517-54914-X
OCLC8587687
779/.99676 19
LC ClassDT365.19 .R53 1982
Preceded byKorallengärten 

Vanishing Africa is the title of the 1982 English-language translation of German film director Leni Riefenstahl's Mein Afrika, an illustrations book published in the same year in Germany. It was published by Harmony Books in the United States.

Synopsis

The pictures are evidence of Riefenstahl's passion for Africa and an attempt to capture the region's soul before it lost its innocence to the technical age.[1]

Reception

The photographs were recently republished along with those of The Last of the Nuba and The People of Kau in the 2002 book, Africa by Leni Riefentstahl. As a result the collection garnered fresh professional reviews that were generally positive: "A big, black Mercedez-Benz of a book.... Ideology aside, the pictures are hard to resist, combining all the voyeuristic pleasures of National Geographic-style anthropology with an unequivocal appreciation of the innate grace and symmetry of the human form... Riefenstahl`s photographs preserve a mythic vision of this Eden before the fall, a romantic lost world, captured in images as powerfully seductive as the artist herself." V Magazine[2]

Documentary

Together with her other published photographs of the Nuba, several photographs from the book were showcased in the 1993 documentary, The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl.

References