Prayer and protest come in many guises. The Basotho women of South Africa and Lesotho pray to their ancestors for rain, abundance, and peace by painting and slicing brilliant geometric murals on the mud plaster walls of their houses. "If the prayers are successful," says photographer and author Gary N. van Wyk, "the rains arrive and wash away the paintings." Growing up white under apartheid, van Wyk noticed these vivid houses while traveling with his family through the Highveld below Johannesburg where many Basotho lived and worked on white-owned farms. In the years when links to the outlawed African National Congress party were often severely punished, some Basotho women defiantly splashed their homes with the black, green, and gold colors of the ANC. Van Wyk joined in such protests as an art student by helping paint street murals of state-sanctioned violence. A passion for recording political graffiti led him back to the dwellings decorated in ANC colors, several of which he photographed for this dazzling testament to Basotho lives, ceremonies, history, and art. --Francesca Coltrera


The New York Times Book Review, Martin Filler
In these vibrant patterns, at once contemporary and timeless, Western eyes will find reflections of the painted architecture of the German Expressionists, as well as the art of Klee, Matisse and Malevich.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Traditionally, Basotho women grow the crops that sustain the family while the men tend the cattle that are their wealth. Like many peoples around the world who live off the land, the Basotho seek the protection and intervention of their ancestors with the forces of nature to insure adequate rainfall, plentiful sunshine, and a peaceful environment. Uniquely, these "prayers" are regularly expressed as inscribed and painted designs on the broad, flat walls of their one-story houses. In recent times the lives of Basotho families have changed considerably, but the women still tend the homesteads and paint their houses freshly every year, for rain washes away the designs over time. In this book van Wyk explores the early history of the people - the story of the remarkable king, Moshoeshoe, who united them and kept them independent - and the ceremonies that persist even in the modern world. He describes and illustrates with his color photographs male and female diviners and healers, and the sacred landscape that the people revere. Best of all, excellent photographs of the houses and the painters illustrate the fascinating text.

FROM THE CRITICS

Booknews