Alan Huffman is known for chronicling epic sagas that have slipped through the cracks of history, such as his 2004 nonfiction book Mississippi in Africa, which explores two parallel universes: The U.S. state of Mississippi and a largely forgotten freed-slave colony by the same name on the west coast of Africa. The book's backdrop is sweeping -- it spans two continents and two centuries, yet Huffman brings the story to life through engaging and thoughtful portraits of characters ranging from a 19th century Mississippi slaveholder who abhorred slavery to a contemporary Liberian man grappling with his nation's civil war, the causes of which were rooted in the conflicts of the old American South.
Ten Point, Huffman's first book, likewise tells a personal tale against a historical backdrop. Through his grandmother's poignant and revealing photographs, the book illustrates the final days of the wilderness of the Mississippi Delta, the setting for William Faulkner's short story The Bear. Sultana, released in 2010, follows three young soldiers through a remarkable series of survival challenges during and after the American Civil War, including their capture and imprisonment, culminating with their surviving the worst maritime disaster in American history.
We're with Nobody, co-authored with Michael Rejebian, is a quirky romp through the contemporary American political landscape, focusing on Huffman's and Rejebian's 18 years as opposition researchers, during which they roamed the U.S. in a succession of cheap rental cars, getting the goods on candidates from presidential appointments and congressional representatives down to local school board members.
Huffman's newest book (Grove-Atlantic in March 2013) is Here I Am, the story of war photographer Tim Hetherington, who covered conflicts from the West African nation of Liberia to Sierra Leone, Darfur, Nigeria, Afghanistan and Libya. Hetherington, whose artistic eye and focus on revealing the lives of his subjects set him apart from other conflict photographers, was nominated for an Academy Award (with codirector Sebastian Junger) for the documentary film Restrepo. He was killed in Libya, alongside photographer Chris Hondros, on April 20, 2011, while covering that nation's revolution.
