Acclaimed filmmaker Su Friedrich takes us on an intimate and visually rich autobiographical journey through her personal journals, letters, that show how her artistic influences, sense of humor, and flair for adventure as she describes a trip she took through West Africa in 1976 at the age of 21.
Features 100+ color drawings, photographs, and images.
In 1976, Su Friedrich, the experimental filmmaker and visual artist known for exploring themes of identity, gender, and personal narrative through avant-garde cinema. embarked on a transformative six-month solo trip through nine countries in North and West Africa. Through her letters, diary entries, and images captured in black and white on her 35mm Olympus, she documented her day-to-day encounters with the people she meets from Algeria to Morocco (during the Western Sahara War), Burkina Faso to Nigeria (during a coup). Friedrich not only weaves a rich tapestry of Africa in the mid-1970s, but she also imbues each page with her thoughts, feelings, and discoveries. She travels south through the Sahara by hitching rides on trucks and recalls her surprise when she appeared in the central market of a town and was quickly invited to stay at the home of one of the curious locals. Thirty-nine years later, Friedrich has unearthed her journals, photographs and letters and has constructed a record of her discoveries on a journey that will resonate with readers who love to travel and fans with wanderlust.
“This book is for/about every woman on every continent who still wants, or who still fights, to be free from the bullshit proffered by the patriarchy, and to all the women who have wandered the world to find the world.”—Su Friedrich
SU FRIEDRICH is a legendary New York-based filmmaker who writes, directs, photographs and edits. Her filmography includes The Ties that Bind (1985), Damned If You Don't (1987), Hide and Seek (1996), From the Ground Up (2008), Gut Renovation (2012), and Today (2022), among others. Her landmark film, Sink or Swim (1990), was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress. Friedrich is the recipient of the Cal Arts Alpert Award in the Arts and has received fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation and John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Recently Professor of Visual Art in the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University, she currently teaches film and video production at Connecticut College.
