Steve Bloom has ventured away from the centre of the dynamic African metropolis of Nairobi into neighbourhoods where malls and supermarkets have not yet penetrated – a world that is changing fast. Here people buy their daily necessities locally, from small shopkeepers who decorate their hoardings with hand-painted signs. The results are often delightfully quirky – an authentic form of popular street graphics. Store façades are painted with images of goods of all kinds, from light bulbs to cuts of meat. Affirmative messages abound. ‘Beauty is your birthright’ proclaims the Eclipse Hair Salon. ‘Never give up’, urges the Bora-Bora Bar; ‘Life continues’. More than one shack hotel wittily declares itself ‘Hotel Hilton’. ‘Ghetto life is not easy’ says the façade of Abdalla Store. Indeed not: life here is very hard, yet this book is a tribute to the creativity and generosity of the human spirit.

Extent: 144 pp
Format: hardback
Illustrations: 138
Publication date: 2009-11-02
Size: 21.8 x 29.2 cm
ISBN: 9780500543818

Introduction • Afya Fish and Chips • Beauty Hair Salon • Family Care Hotel • Eclipse Hair Cut • Shoe Repair • Hygiene Butchery • New Wave Gym • Pumwani Electronics • Area Kawangware Radio Sales • Aberdare Trading Syndicate • Damos Video Centre • Kampala Coffin Centre • Half London Greengrocer

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