The Photographer: Into War-Torn Afghanistan with Doctors Without Borders by Emmanuel Guibert


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Photographer Didier Lefevre travelled on a 3-month mission to Afghanistan in 1986 when the Soviet-Afghan War was raging. This mixture of photographs and illustrations tells of his journey from Pakistan to the mission site in Afghanistan, his stay and his journey back to Pakistan that almost cost him his life.

A very unique combination of cartooning and photographs have been combined to portray so much on the journey: the beauty of the land, the terror of illegally crossing the border, traveling under cover of night, watching for Soviet planes. Then at the medical camp it chronicles horrific war wounds as well as sickness and accident victims. The photographs, the text, the illustrations capture the spirit, the agony, the willpower, the drive of the doctors who come to work here.

The political situation is explained at the beginning of the book to give the reader a reference point, but concentrates on human relations and interactions without getting too political. The reader is given a vision of the Afghani way of life, the ravages of war, the innocents and the opportunists.

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