Magnum Editions Poster: Ijewo. From the series “This is What Hatred Did”. 2014

“This is what hatred did” is the final phrase found in Amos Tutuola’s novel My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. When published in 1954, the novel provoked such violent reactions that Tutuola had to flee Nigeria. Its concluding sentence here provides the starting point for Cristina de Middel‘s interpretation of the tenebrous story set in the streets of Makoko, a slum in the city of Lagos. The project merges Tutuola’s original story with the reality of a country suffering under the burden of ill-informed and reductive African stereotypes. De Middel plays with the double narrative offered by text and image, and the new layers of meaning produced by their union.