Speak The Wind

On the islands in the Strait of Hormuz, off the southern coast of Iran, there is a common belief that the winds can possess a person, bringing illness and disease. The existence of similar convictions in some African countries suggests that the cult may have been brought to Iran from southeast Africa through the Arab slave trade. This history is rarely spoken about but these winds and the traces they have left on the islands and their inhabitants are the touchstone for Hoda Afshar's Speak The Wind. Through her subtle and perceptive images of the extraordinary landscapes, the people and their rituals, Afshar's beautiful and complex book attempts to picture the wind and its psychic entanglements, to form a visible record of the invisible.

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Speak The Wind captures the islands’ beauty and mysticism — silvery black-sand beaches, jagged salt mountains and hulking rock formations in shades of pink and fiery red — alongside drawings sketched by the islanders.’ – Financial Times