Teju Cole’s Blind Spot has been shortlisted for the 2017 Paris Photo-Aperture Photobook Awards. The book, a fascinating blend of text and images, was named in the First PhotoBook category.

Founded in 2012 by Aperture Foundation and Paris Photo, the Paris Photo-Aperture Foundation PhotoBook Awards “celebrate the photobook’s contribution to the evolving narrative of photography.” The awards come in three categories: First PhotoBook, PhotoBook of the Year, and Photography Catalogue of the Year. A total of thirty-five books are nominated.

Cole, who is a photography critic at The New York Times, made a Facebook post about the honour.

Thrilled and very surprised to find out yesterday that Blind Spot is on the shortlist for the 2017 Paris Photo-Aperture Photobook Awards, in the First Photobook category. Winner will be announced in November.

So grateful to the many people who’ve supported this book—but I wanted to especially thank Alessandra Mauro and Roberto Koch at Contrasto Books, who helped me develop the original concept, and who published the book in Italian (Punto d’Ombra) a year before it came out in English. Huge thanks too to Caitlin McKenna, my editor at Random House, who helped me turn the Italian book back into English, pushing for greater precision and poetry. And finally, Angela Chen, who meticulously and tirelessly worked on both versions of the book with me, from image scanning to line edits.

Released in June of this year, Blind Spot is Teju Cole’s fourth book, following the novella Every Day Is for the Thief (2007, 2014), the novel Open City (2011), and the essay collection Known and Strange Things (2016).

The thirty-five nominated photobooks will be profiled in issue 013 of The PhotoBook Review. The winners for the three categories will be announced on November 10 at at Paris Photo.

See all the nominated photobooks HERE.

Congratulations to Teju Cole.