A website by Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières.

MSF
Reviews
  • Share

The Photographer

Into War-Torn Afghanistan with Doctors Without Borders

"An inspiring, beautiful book about a perpetually knotty country at the height of the Soviet-Afghan conflict, The Photographer should be mandatory reading for our secretary of State and president."

- Carlo Wolff, for The Boston Globe, March 29, 2009
More reviews »

Page 74 from The Photographer

Page 74 from The Photographer.

View more pages from The Photographer »

Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and First Second Books present a unique exhibit featuring photos and illustrations from The Photographer, a graphic novel documenting MSF’s clandestine cross-border humanitarian operation to assist Afghans stranded without medical care in areas hardest-hit after the Soviet invasion in 1979.

Photojournalist Didier Lefèvre became part of this massive humanitarian aid effort in 1986. Dodging Soviet aircraft and navigating treacherous terrain, Lefèvre’s journey nearly cost him his life. Over a decade later he collaborated with acclaimed graphic novelist Emmanuel Guibert to bring this story to life in The Photographer.

The novel combines Lefèvre’s images and Guibert’s artwork in a rare collaboration that conveys a depth of honesty and commitment to the value of human life, while providing powerful and often heartbreaking images of a country still embroiled in conflict to the present day.