I am the only woman there by Bertinen van Manen, Fw:Books

In a fairly formal and distant manner Bertien van Manen (1935-2024) shows the female labour migrants or the wives of labour migrants who came to the Netherlands in the context of family reunification. Turkish, Moroccan, Tunisian, Spanish, Yugoslavian and Italian women were photographed in their struggle to survive in a foreign culture. Bertien van Manen photographed the often primitive living conditions, work, parties, and leisure activities. The book is a plea for action from the women’s movement in general and the women’s secretariat of the Dutch Trade Union Federation (FNV) in particular.

Bertien van Manen photographed in the 1970’s female labor migrants, and the wives of labor migrants, who came to the Netherlands in the context of family reunification. She portrayed Turkish, Moroccan, Tunisian, Spanish, Yugoslavian, Portugese, Greek and Italian women. At home, work, parties and leisure activities, often struggling to survive in a foreign culture. These photographs resulted in her first book ‘Vrouwen te Gast’, published in 1979. In 2024 Bertien revisited her own photographs and texts to make a new, more contemporary, edit of her first work. For ‘I am the only woman there’ she updated the book with new discovered photographs from her archive and new texts, by herself and Kim Knoppers ; texts by Bertien van Manen and Kim Knoppers.

I am the only woman there by Bertien van Manen. FW:Books, 2024.

• Format: Hardcover

• Dimensions: 170mm x 240mm

• Pages: 160

• Illustrations: Black-and-white

• Publisher: Fw:Books

• ISBN: 9789083451008

• Edition: First edition

• Language: English