Crossing the Water: A Photographic Path to the Afro-Cuban Spirit World » (New Edition)

Claire Garoutte is Assistant Professor of Photography at Seattle University. Her work has appeared in exhibits in the United States and abroad. Garoutte began photographing Afro-Cuban religious practices in Cuba in 1994. She is the author and illustrator of Matter of Trust.

Anneke Wambaugh is an award-winning photographer and an independent scholar of African and Afro-Caribbean ritual art who has worked extensively in Cuba and Haiti. She works as a Haitian Creole interpreter in Seattle.

Textual and photographic exploration of the diversity and hybridity of Afro-Cuban religious practices, with a first-hand account by a practitioner whose individual experience speaks to larger themes.

Publishers Weekly

Photographers Garoutte and Wambaugh demystify and celebrate the Afro-Cuban religions of Santería, Palo Monte and Espiritismo. The three traditions are, they note, inextricable in Cuban practice, with supplicants calling on elements from all three, as well as folk Catholicism, to improve their lives, relationships, finances and health. Garoutte and Wambaugh focus their lenses on Santiago, a retired retailer who is a renowned practitioner of Afro-Cuban religions and godfather to many initiates. Driven by powerful, evocative descriptions and scene-setting, the book delves into the various rituals and spiritual practices that take place in the back rooms of Santiago's Cuban home. Following a precedent set in 1991 by Karen McCarthy Brown in her innovative book Mama Lola, in which a scholarly observer of an Afro-Caribbean religion gradually becomes a participant in her own right, these authors do not attempt to maintain skepticism or distance from the subject they cover, and are gradually initiated into both Santería and Palo Monte. What results is a respectful, vibrant account of Afro-Cuban religions, enhanced by more than 150 vivid photographs. (Feb.)