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Petros Village

by Guy Tillim

Photographs: Guy Tillim

Publisher: Punctum Press

60 pages

Pictures: 27 colour photos

Year: 2006

ISBN: 88-89412-25-9

Price: 132 €

Comments: Ita./Eng; Hardcover 16x22 cm

Petros Village is situated in central Malawi, about 50 kilometres north of the capital Lilongwe. Rural, but not remote, its inhabitants rely on a local market to sell tobacc and beans for cash, and grow maie as a staple food.

The village takes its name from its chief, Petros James. In accordance with Chewa law he inherited the chieftrainship not from the his father, but from his uncle, his mother's brother. The son of his sister Neri will inherit the title from Petros and take his name, just as Petros did from his uncle.

In February 2006, South Africa photographer Guy Tillim met Petros, who immediately invited him to spend a week on his farm, giving up his own bedroom for his guest. And it is precisely this that pervades the pictures that Tillim took during that week: a sacred sense of warm hospitality, which is first and foremost generosity of spirit, unthinkable in city life.

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