青幻舎 SEIGENSHA Art Publishing

From the sixteenth to nineteenth century, vast numbers of people were carried from Africa to the Americas via the transatlantic slave trade. Striving to honor and uphold their own faiths and cultures, these people gave birth over time to a fantastical array of festival masks, costumes, and characters in their new homelands.

“Cimarron” is a Spanish-American word for runaway slaves and the communities that they formed. This photo collection—the third in Seigensha’s Japanese editions of the works of Charles Fréger, after Wilder Mann and Yokai no Shima—explores the treasured legacy of the masked festivities carried on to this day by descendants of the Cimarrones and others of African heritage throughout the Americas.

The original edition of this book was first published in the United Kingdom in 2019 by Thames & Hudson Limited.
The Japanese edition is available for purchase only within Japan.