Sang Fotografer: Memasuki Kancah Perang Afghanistan Bersama Doctors Without Borders (2003) - Plot & Excerpts
This novel was very fascinating as it tells us of an amazing experience led by Didier, an aspiring photographer, who went to Afghanistan of his own free will to document the workings of the Médecins Sans Frontières, a medical non-profit organisation that aims to assist people in Afghanistan. We get to see what the situation was like at the time and how it was treated. It is an interesting novel and I recommend it to anyone whose interests lie in medicine, graphic novels and non-fiction. This is a story about a photographer going to Afghanistan together with Doctors without borders during the Soviet occupation. Of course this is something worth telling. Unfortunately, focus is more on the misshapenings of the photographer than on the doctors' mission or the situation in the country. You have to admire someone going to Afghanistan in the midst of war to let the world know what is happening but sometimes it is hard to sympathize with this person. At the end of his stay he decides to go back alone to save a few weeks. The latter third of the book is about his ordeal during the return trip. He almost freezes to death, his horse dies, and he is forced to give up considerable amounts of money. All this because he thought he would save some time when in the end the doctors he could have traveled with arrived one day after him.Technically this is comic mixed with photographs. Sometimes it works quite well, in other cases less so. Some of the photos have been circled or crossed with red marker pen, I never figured out why it did not add anything to the story. The panels are often heavily loaded with text whereas the photographs stand for themselves, this makes for an uneven rhythm, the story does not flow in a natural way. When dialogues are recounted the drawings sometimes get stuck in a talking-head-like fashion.Still some of the photographs included show a fantastic landscape and you get an idea about what is important to the people living there. Religion is absolutely essential; the first question the photographer is asked when traveling alone is what religion he is. The war against the Soviets is fought with what resources can be mustered; weapons and ammunition is brought in via caravans from Pakistan. Almost everyone is armed but the fighting is always somewhere else. Not too far away though since the wounded come to the doctors for help. Seeing this people in this environment gives some clues as to why it seems almost impossible to win a war there.
What do You think about Sang Fotografer: Memasuki Kancah Perang Afghanistan Bersama Doctors Without Borders (2003)?
couldn't get into it at first, but the second half is what really makes the book!
—Cyanna98
Great. Stick with it -- it turns into an adventure story!
—melmaay
