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Best Books of the Year So Far
Looking for something great to read? Browse our editors' picks for 2015's Best Books of the Year So Far in fiction, nonfiction, mysteries, children's books, and much more.
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This is a graphic memoir which tells the story of French photojournalist Didier Lefevre, on his first major assignment documenting the work of Doctors Without Borders in Afghanistan during the Cold War of the 1980s. He starts in Peshwar, Pakistan and works his way through Afghanistan, traveling primarily by foot or mule. Didier's actual photography is incorporated in between the panels of artwork, a format I had not come across before but one that really held my interest!
For those not familiar with this time in history, no worries. Translator Alexis Siegel (as you can guess, Lefevre's story was originally published in French) provides a clear and very helpful overview of the situation in her introductory essay at the beginning of the book. For those interested in the topic, much of what is discussed in this essay can also be found in the powerful nonfiction works of Azar Nafisi.
I've always been impressed with Doctors Without Borders as an organization, even more so now. I like how they do not see borders, only patients that need help regardless of which side they are fighting on -- so while the hospitals they set up might have been stationed in Afghanistan, a good number of their patients also came from the Soviet side. It struck me as somewhat funny how the story tells of how the doctors had to cross borders illegally at night, always fearing capture by the Soviets, yet the Soviets didn't bat an eye at bringing their wounded to the very doctors they were trying so hard to keep out!Read more ›
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In Collateral Damage, Marianne Hirsch states that during the war in the Middle East, "a picture is worth a thousand words...before the power of visual images, the subject has an uncontrollable emotional response" (Hirsch 1209). During the current Iraq war, she argues, these thousand words have been systematically censored, informing the reader that "as soon as Americans were being wounded and killed in significant numbers...the dissemination of images was strictly controlled" (1210). In The Photographer, Didier Lefevre represents Afghanistan in the 1980s free from the controlling tethers of U.S. censorship as he attempts to take photographs constantly, honing his talent while he argues "`improving your pictures necessarily implies improving your relations with people"' (61). Thus, while Hirsch contends that "in the current media age our students (never mind our public officials) have lost their verbal literacy and have given themselves over to an overwhelmingly dominant, uncontrollable visuality that impairs thought" (1210), Lefevre takes pains to conjoin verbal and visual literacy to develop more meaningful relationships with the people he meets. He takes pictures, surely, but also thumbs through translation texts to adequately communicate and empathize with the Afghani people, especially later in the book when he is left without an interpreter (176). He must relate to his foreign audience by conforming to their expectations, stating that he is a Christian (171) though he makes a misstep in stating he does not have children (172). By using language in conjunction with his photography, Lefevre transcends his role as observer--his camera does not censor so much as it amplifies his experience of contact and integration into another culture.Read more ›
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First, if you want to get the most out of this book buy a magnifying glass (mine cost $1 at CVS) - there are very small reproductions of contact photos containing great detail. Second, "graphic-novel" seems a misnomer, as this is not a novel. Perhaps graphic-photojournalism better describes this memoir of the second author's experiences traveling to Afghanistan with MSF in 1986, the wonder and the horror captured by B&W photos when they exist and by the first author's drawings when they do not.
The book has 3 parts: the trip in, the medical mission, the trip out. Each part features, for me, a particularly moving photo. Part 1 begins in Pakistan where the photographer, Didier, acculturates first to Peshawar and the MSF team, then to the Afghans and the stark landscape in which they live, captured in the photo of the donkey and its rescuers recuperating on a rock in the middle of a shallow rushing Afghan river (see promo material above). Part 3 follows Didier's near catastrophic attempt to walk back to Pakistan without the MSF team, culminating in the nightmare photos of his beleaguered horse and the landscape in which he expected to die. Part 2 is harrowing in its depiction of human suffering in the Badakshan MSF clinic. Most moving to me is the two-page sequence of the emotions of a young girl treated for a burned hand. Other photos straight-forwardly document more ghastly injuries.
Babur wrote of his campaign into Afghansitan, as did some 19th century English explorer/soldiers, but there is a recent canon of writings of westerners traveling here: R Byron, early 30s; E Newby, late 50s; D Murphy early 60s; P Levi early 70s; J Elliot, late 70s-mid 80s; R Stewart, 02; and (though it's a different sort of book) S Chayes, 02-05. To this add The Photographer.Read more ›
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This item: The Photographer: Into War-torn Afghanistan with Doctors Without Borders
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