Nollywood — Pieter Hugo, Special Edition (Signed + C print) , 2009

This special edition of Nollywood by Pieter Hugo, published by Prestel in 2009, is part of the Darwin Bookshop for its brutal, theatrical clarity in documenting Africa’s second-largest film industry—and the imagined worlds it generates. Produced in Nigeria in collaboration with local actors and communities, Hugo’s staged portraits re-enact the hallucinatory iconography of Nollywood cinema: ritual killings, zombie brides, corrupt officials, spirits caught mid-exorcism. The result is an unsettling taxonomy of visual archetypes, both hyper-stylised and deeply local.

This collector’s edition, limited to 150 copies, includes a signed and numbered C-print titled Song Iyke with Ebube, Thank God and Mpompo, Enugu, Nigeria, 2008. The photograph is signature Hugo—raw light, scorched landscape, and a cast of boys embodying myth and menace with the casual confidence of children raised among ghosts. The book itself is bound in black faux leather with gilt titling, inset with an image of a man in a suit standing over a freshly slaughtered cow, drenched in red. It's a hard object: sacred and cinematic, staged yet documentary.

With essays by Chris Abani, Stacy Hardy, and Zina Saro-Wiwa, this volume situates Hugo’s work within a broader narrative of African self-representation and the seductive power of fiction. Each photograph suggests that performance is not escape, but survival; not illusion, but cultural assertion.

Technical Sheet

Title
Nollywood (Special Edition)

Artist / Author
Pieter Hugo

Date
2009

Technique / Printing Method
Offset printing
C-print (signed and numbered)

Medium / Materials
Hardcover, faux leather with gold embossing and tipped-in image
Accompanied by loose photographic print

Edition
Special edition of 150 copies (this is No. 129/150)
Includes signed and numbered C-print

Signed
Yes (book and print)

Dimensions (cm)
Book: 29 x 29 cm
Print: 27.5 x 27.5 cm

Language
English

Pages
160

Publisher / Editor
Prestel

Condition
New