A classic, indeed perhaps the best of the Mapplethorpe
books. And for many most certainly the most
typical Mapplethorpe, now available once again
thanks to this re-edition.
The Black Book, first published in 1986, presents 96
formally stringent and highly erotic nudes, all of them
photographs of black men, either as full figures, or
staged as details, as fragments of their bodies.
Stylized as classical statues or provocatively in all
their presence and sensuous radiance. Black-andwhite
photography was Mapplethorpe s preferred
medium. And his obsessive aesthetics was based on
completely mastering it, as this enabled him to visualize
any number of tonal gradations and penetrate
deep into the very pores of the gleaming black skin.
It is a method that reached a climax in these images.
The Black Book, Mapplethorpe s homage to the black
male body, has always been one of the most important
visual contributions to the discussion on beauty,
sensuality, and sexuality in photography.

From its inception in California in 1974 to its highly acclaimed critical success at Joseph Papp's Public Theater and on Broadway, the Obie Award-winning "for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf" has excited, inspired, and transformed audiences all over the country. Passionate and fearless, Shange's words reveal what it is to be of color and female in the twentieth century. First published in 1975 when it was praised by "The New Yorker" for "encompassing...every feeling and experience a woman has ever had," "for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf" will be read and performed for generations to come. Here is the complete text, with stage directions, of a groundbreaking dramatic prose poem written in vivid and powerful language that resonates with unusual beauty in its fierce message to the world.