Poised to be the most important photography book of 2008, Zoe Strauss' AMERICA shines a light on the often unseen people and places in the United States today. Following in the famed footsteps of Robert Frank: The Americans, but 50 years later, Zoe Strauss traveled across the country as a Gund fellow documenting what she calls "the beauty and struggle of everyday life." In highly formal compositions, she uses photography to create epic narratives that pursue "a hopeful quality in adverse conditions and how people manage to live their lives." Strauss' photographs depict the bittersweet beauty of everyday life and lay bare the human comedy.

Poised to be the most important photography book of the year, Zoe Strauss's America shines a light on the often unseen people and places in the United States today.

Once in a great while, a photographer and their photographs break new ground and people sit right up and take notice. Zoe Strauss is such a photographer. The Philadelphia native who has brought us searing images of that city's marginalized people and places on the fringe of society, has taken her no holds barred, up close and personal style of photography to the roads less traveled across America. At times witty, touching, poetic, and downright shocking, Zoe Strauss's photographs capture the beauty and struggle of everyday life and resonate as a social document of our time, and as sheer and powerful art.

Zoe Strauss picked up a camera on her 30th birthday, but in only eight years, has generated a huge body of work that has been exhibited in the Whitney Biennial, and has garnered her a United States Artists grant.