Jordi Esteva was born in 1951 in Barcelona. He is a writer and photographer who has always been fascinated by Africa and the Middle East thereby focusing most his activity as a journalist and photographer on this part of the world. His first documentary was Return to the Land of Souls (Retour au pays des âmes).
He spent five years in Egypt working for Radio Cairo International. His book Los oasis de Egipto (Lunwerg, 1995), shows a collection of images that result from the time he spent studying everyday life in the desert in Egypt. He was Chief editor and Art director of the Ajoblanco magazine from 1987 to the summer of 1993. In 1994 he participated in the UNESCO World Heritage Project for 2001 and was commissioned to photograph the Medina of Marrakech. In 1966 he was commissioned a photographic project to record the architecture of the Moroccan Atlas: Fortalezas de barro en el sur de Marruecos (Companía Literaria, 1996). Mil y una voces (El País/Aguilar 1998 and Círculo de Lectores, 1999), is a book of conversations with Arab artists and intellectuals of both sides of the Mediterranean about the challenge that Arab societies are facing to adapt to modern times. He then published Viaje al país de las almas, (Pre-Textos, 1999). This book is both a visual and written testimony of the African world of animism: its initiation rituals and spirit possession phenomena.
Los árabes del mar (Península/Altair) was published in 2006. This book explores the journeys of the old sailors of the Arabian coast who sailed along the various ports of the Indian Ocean aided by the monsoon and following a route that had remained practically the same since the times of Sinbad the Sailor.
Most recently, he finished ““Socotra, the island of djinns”, a film project about the island of Socotra.
