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Teju Cole

The text tells us this is Venice, or more precisely Giudecca, but what we see is an empty arcade, a distant tower, and the long shadow of the photographer. It is a scene with an understated surrealism, like a painting of de Chirico, but both photo and adjacent text are by Teju Cole. Giudecca, writes Cole, means ‘“Jewry,” though there’s no proof a Jewish comm ...

In the opening piece of his book of collected essays, the novelist and photography critic Teju Cole feels briefly possessed by the spirit of James Baldwin who, like him, travelled outside the ...

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