{"product_id":"sweet-flypaper-of-life","title":"The Sweet Flypaper of Life","description":"The  Sweet Flypaper of Life  is a \"poem\" about ordinary people, about  teenagers around a jukebox, about children at an open fire hydrant, about  riding the subway alone at night, about picket lines and artist work spaces.  This renowned, life-affirming collaboration between artist Roy DeCarava  and writer Langston Hughes honors in words and pictures what the authors  saw, knew, and felt deeply about life in their city.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Hughes's heart-warming description of Harlem in the late 1940s and early  1950s is seen through the eyes of one grandmother, Sister Mary Bradley. We  experience the sights and sounds of Harlem as seen through her learned and  worldly eyes, expressed here through Hughes's poetic prose. As she states,  \"I done got my feet caught in the sweet flypaper of life and I'll be dogged  if I want to get loose.\" DeCarava's photographs lay open a world of sense  and feeling that begins with his perception and vision. The ruminations go  beyond the limit of simple observation and contend with deeper meanings  to reveal these individuals as subjects worthy of art. While Hughes states  \"We've had so many books about how bad life is, maybe it's time to have  one showing how good it is,\" the photographs bring us back to this lively  dialogue and a complex reality, to a resolution that stands with the optimism  of the photographic medium and the certainty of DeCarava's artistic moment.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e In 1952 DeCarava became the first African American photographer to win a  John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship. The grant enabled DeCarava  to focus on the photography he had been creating since the mid-1940s  and to complete  The Sweet Flypaper of Life , a moving, photo-poetic work  in the urban setting of Harlem. DeCarava compiled a set of images from  which Hughes chose 141 and adeptly supplied a fictive narration, reflecting  on life in that city-within-a-city. First published in 1955, the book, widely  considered a classic of photographic visual literature, was reprinted by  public demand several times. This fourth printing, the Heritage Edition,  is the first authorized English-language edition since 1983 and includes  an afterword by Sherry Turner DeCarava tracing the history and ongoing  importance of this book.","brand":"Thames and Hudson Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42664789082148,"sku":"9780999843819","price":39.99,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0725\/9734\/0196\/files\/9780999843819.jpg?v=1774470964","url":"https:\/\/thamesandhudson.com.au\/products\/sweet-flypaper-of-life","provider":"Thames \u0026 Hudson Australia","version":"1.0","type":"link"}