Customer Reviews

Shack Chic: Art and Innovation In South African Shack-Lands

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I bought Shack Chic as a "souvenier" after spending a summer working in the Cape Town townships with the youth there - I cannot think of a better object to take home and represent to my friends and family Cape Town's townships and South Africa as a nation. This photo-essay book, with brilliant colors and spectacular images, is a testament to the strength of South Africans and their innovation and resourcefulness even in the most destitute of living conditions. Portrays poverty in the post-Apartheid era not as the romanticized victimization of people but the hopeful and perservering will of humankind to live with digity.

This book is a wonderful coffee table book. The photos are stunning--on par with those found in National Geographic. Pictures of the inside of one- and two-room "shacks" found in "squatter camps" of South Africa fill the book, including brief quotes from shack inhabitants. We bought this book as a "thank you" for family after living in South Africa for a few years. For anyone that is interested in photography, interior design or lifestyles of the poor in Southern Africa, this book is for you. It's worth every penny.