Sanle Sory

This stunning book, the first monograph on Sory s work, features more than 200 of his arresting black-and-white photographs including both studio portraits and nightlife photography.

In 1957, Sanle Sory, arrived in the Burkinabe city of Bobo-Dioulasso. Struck by the prices ID photographers could command, he became apprentice to a Ghanian photographer to learn the trade. In 1960, 17-yearold Sory opened his own studio, Volta Photo. To attract clients, he outfitted the studio with props and backdrops, resulting in ID photos and laid-back outtakes that show a spectrum of vibrant youth culture in Burkina Faso s early post-colonial days.

Outside of the studio Sory became a dedicated chronicler of the city s vibrant nightlife organizing outdoor music events and documenting the unposed, natural gaiety of kids having fun. Sory became one of the most renowned photographers in West Africa, respected for documenting life in a rapidly changing social and political landscape, and the familiar but also specific tension between tradition and modernity in youth culture.

Sory, whose work is included in museum collections including MoMA, the V&A and the Art Institute of Chicago, reflects on his life and career in one of the book s eight essays, with the others shedding light on different aspects of his work and the culture around him.

Edited by Florent Mazzoleni, a French music historian and writer who oversees Sory s archive, this book is not only essential for his fans and collectors (who include Beyonce, Colman Domingo, and Alicia Keys and Swizz Beats), but a collection that will draw a new audience into the lively world of postcolonial West Africa.