After 50 years out of print, a reissue of Ernest Cole’s House of Bondage sheds light on the horrors of apartheid

For over 50 years, Cole’s photobook House of Bondage has lay out of print; leaving a collection of one of South Africa’s most influential photographers and documentarians of apartheid inaccessible to many. Now, the book has been reissued by Aperture. Including images previously unseen, the reissue once more brings to the fore an indispensable reminder of the horrors of apartheid.

Born in 1940 in the Black township of Eersterust on the outskirts of Pretoria, Ernest Cole was the fourth of six children. Something of a “loner”, Cole’s nephew Leslie Matlaisane – now the trustee of the Ernest Cole Family Trust – explains that Cole was also a “curious and very religious child”. His love of photography started early, after he was given a camera by a local priest. “He couldn’t get over it and for a few days he carried it around with him wherever he went – even to school,” Leslie says.

His life “shaped” by apartheid, Leslie explains that Cole was among the first generation to experience Hendrik Verwoerd’s vision of Bantu education: “which restricted the education of Africans to serve the labour needs of the South African economy”. Rejecting such a limited education, he left the system and instead pursued learning through correspondence with Wolsey Hall in Oxford. In 1996, Cole then fled South Africa, taking his photographs with him and, in 1967 – while in exile – House of Bondage was published in Canada by Random House. Soon, Cole found himself being commissioned by Ford Foundation and Life Magazine, “on top of the world and a long way from home”, Leslie summarises. However, in the 1980s Cole ran into issues. Becoming homeless and suffering from destitution, his correspondence with family in South Africa ceased. In 1990 he died of cancer in New York.

Instrumental in the reissuing, Leslie embarked on the mission due to a number of factors. Firstly, it was initiated after a lost body of Cole’s work was found in Sweden. Moreover, the book had lacked exposure in South Africa when it was in print after it was banned due to a number of favourable reviews in the US. And, in line with this, Leslie understood that the book “remains influential for a new generation of photographers globally”. He continues: “The Ernest Cole images have a place in the political landscape of South Africa. They are against injustice and anything that fails the people of South Africa. Conditions in South Africa may have since changed – but not enough.”

The book offers an expansive look at the experiences and suffering of South Africa’s Black community under apartheid, refusing to shy away from its atrocity. “It is Cole’s photos of crowded train commuters, brutal work circumstances, impoverished schools, police harassment, bullying municipal signage and segregated and unequal hospital care that resonate most,” Leslie identifies. Originally containing 183 photos which were organised into 14 thematic chapters, the publication uniquely chronicles a period of history often pushed into obscurity, both by its enforcers and people outside of South Africa unwilling to listen.

On how the reissue will be received, Leslie hopes for its educative potential, and for its ability to become a vital means of ensuring such horrors are never forgotten. “I am hopeful and confident that people will respond positively to the new edition of House of Bondage as it offers many clues to life under apartheid South Africa,” he says. “People will be using House of Bondage for reference when they come to write the history of the revolution 100 years from now.”