Golden Apple of the Sun by Teju Cole

A collection of works by Teju Cole, an American writer, photographer, and art historian.

In the five weeks leading up to the U.S. presidential election on November 3, 2020, the author photographed his kitchen counter at his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Following the tradition of still life works by Jean Siméon Chardin, Paul Cézanne, the masters of Dutch painting, and contemporary photographers such as Laura Letinsky and Jan Groover, he took photographs every day.

Unlike these great predecessors, the arrangement of objects on the table was left entirely to chance. "Bowls and plates moved around in unpredictable arrangements," the author says.

Thus, a remarkable portrait of a kitchen counter in a house was born, captured during a period of great social, cultural, and political change. Accompanying the photographs is a long essay written on the author's diverse interests, including hunger, fasting, mourning, slavery, intimacy, painting, poetry, and the history of photography.

Interspersed throughout the sequence of text and photographs are pages from an 18th-century handwritten cookbook by an anonymous author found in Cambridge. This is an intellectual and humane masterpiece that conveys the author's unique unconventional expression and intellectual, insightful perspective.

Hardcover / 136 pages / 193 x 253 mm / color, black and white / 2021

Purchased new at a bookstore in New York several years ago.
In excellent condition, having been opened only a few times at home. Stored on a bookshelf at home.