Neville Garrick ADD

A Rasta's Pilgrimage - Ethiopian Faces and Places

BOOK [Pomegranate Communications Inc]

Release date: 05/01/1999

PHOTOS TELL OF RASTAFARIAN'S JOURNEY TO SPIRITUAL HOME

In the fall of 1996, Rastafarian photographer Neville Garrick fulfilled the dream of a lifetime by traveling to his spiritual homeland, Ethiopia. A Rasta’s Pilgrimage, a new book by Pomegranate, is the story of Garrick’s journey. Told through 118 vibrant, four-color photographs and memoir-style text interwoven, the book unveils an image of a country where, in Garrick’s words, “God lives”.

Contradicting the familiar images of a famine-stricken, war-torn Ethiopia, A Rasta’s Pilgrimage shows a land distinguished by breathtaking natural beauty, fascinating cultural monuments and a lovely, warm people. Beginning in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa, the book traces Garrick’s trip to the fertile valley of Shashemane—an area set aside by the Emperor Haile Selassie for the repatriation of Western blacks, the thundering majesty of the Blue Nile Falls, and to Axum, the birthplace of Ethiopian civilization and the home of the church that houses the original Ark of the Covenant.

The book follows Garrick as he steps carefully among the ruins of seventeenth century castles, walks the cool aisles of mural-decorated churches, and gazes in admiration at the lovely artifacts and monuments of the Ethiopian regions of Gondar, Lalibela, Dire Dawa, Axum, and Harar. Born of a back-to-Africa movement inspired by the teachings of Marcus Garvey, Rastafari evolved into a full-fledged—if outcast—religion by the 1960s. To Rastas Ethiopia is a spiritual sanctuary; a place of returning, regaining, and belonging.