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Jordi Esteva

1951
Jordi Esteva

Biography

The writer and photographer Jordi Esteva is passionate about Oriental and African cultures and they have been the focus of most of his journalistic and photographic career. He lived for five years in Cairo, working for Radio Cairo International. His study of daily life in the desert was published as Els oasis d’Egipte: Los oasis de Egipto (Lunwerg, 1995). He was the editor-in chief and the art director for Ajoblanco magazine between 1987 and the summer of 1993. In 1994 he took part in UNESCO's Heritage 2001 project and photographed the medina in Marrakesh, a work that was shown at the headquarters of the United Nations in New York in September 1994 and at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris in May 1996. In 1996 he produced a photographic study of the architecture of the Atlas Mountains in Morocco, Fortalezas de barro en el sur de Marruecos (Compañía Literaria 1996). In 1998 he published Mil i una veus: Mil y una voces (El País/Aguilar 1998, Círculo de Lectores 1999) a book of conversations with sixteen artists and intellectuals from both sides of the Mediterranean on the subject of Arab societies facing the challenges of modernity. He published Viatge al pais de les animes: Viaje al país de las almas (Pre-Textos 1999), an approach to African animism, in which he documented initiation rituals and the phenomenon of possession. In 2006 Els arabs del mar: Los árabes del mar (Península/Altair) was published. It tells the story of the search for the ancient mariners of the African coastline who sailed to the ports of the Indian Ocean in their sailed vessels driven by monsoons, following routes that have hardly changed since the times of Sinbad the Sailor. The book earned him the Liberpress Prize, Camins 2008. Girona. October 2008.

In February 2009, after two months working in Ivory Coast, he finished shooting the film, Retorn al país de les ànimes and in 2011, after the film had been shown in numerous international festivals, it was shown in Barcelona.

In September 2011 Atalanta published his latest book, Socotra, l'illa dels genis, which, in the words of Jacinto Antón, writing in El País newspaper's literary Babelia supplement, is "A most beautiful, extraordinary, passionate yet melancholy journey to Sinbad the Sailor's lost island".

In July 2012 this book was awarded the 5th Viatges Camins del Cid Literary Prize.

In December 2013 he travelled again to Ivory Coast and Ghana to film Komian.

He returned to Socotra early in 2014 to film Socotra, l'illa dels genis, which was completed in July 2015. 

Exhibitions

Exposicions individuals

2017 Socotra: la isla de los Genios. Festival Revela't. Fàbrica de Cal Garbat, Vilassar de Dalt.

2007 (del 21 de juny al 27 de setembre). Fills de Simbad.  Palau Robert, Barcelona.

2007. Fills de Si...

See the exhibitions

Bibliography

Publicacions

ESTEVA, Jordi. Los oasis de Egipto. Barcelona: Lunwerg, 1995.

ESTEVA, Jordi; MIMÓ, Roger. Fortalezas de Barro en el Sur de Marruecos. Madrid: Compañía literaria, 1996.

ESTEVA, Jordi. Viatge al país de les ànim...

See the bibliography

Work