Above all else, it is a truly inspiring piece of work. This amazing work gives us a window into the suffering and perseverance of the Afghan people. It is to Didier Lefevre's immense credit that he risked his life to bring that story to light.

It seamlessly blends personal storytelling, photography, and illustration to reveal the essential work of Doctors Without Borders. The Photographer is a work of stunning originality and power. Angelina Jolie, UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador Suddenly Afghanistan, a distant land, a foreign culture, a courageous and resilient people seem closer, more familiar-more human. Turning its pages, the reader begins to understand what it means to lose everything as a refugee of war, to cross mountains to help someone you never met, to feel the intense responsibility of being the only one able to capture the last moments of a child's stolen life. Guibert based his writing and drawing of the book on their hours of interviews, a working method that he also used to create the graphic novel Alan’s War, which was nominated for four Eisner. Fournot organized the medical mission and hired Lefevre to join her staff of doctors and nurses.An unflinching and gripping photographic memoir, the Photographer takes you on a breathtaking journey through the best and worst humanity has to offer in times of war. One of the people pictured in The Photographer is Doctors Without Borders staffer Juliette Fournot. The book captures the toll of war in small moments that glorify no one images show interactions between children and parents, soldiers and civilians, doctors and patients. Guibert collaborated with Lefevre to produce The Photographer: Into War-Torn Afghanistan With Doctors Without Borders, an unusual graphic novel that combines Lefevre's photos and Guibert's illustrations with a comic-book style narrative.Īs Guibert tells host Guy Raz, Lefevre's black-and-white photographs form 'the spine of the story,' while his simple color illustrations capture the landscape, people and emotion of the journey.

And they might have remained there had it not been for graphic novelist Emmanuel Guibert. For two decades, his contact sheets languished in boxes. Lefevre's assignment was to document the difficulties of providing humanitarian aid - along the way, he captured 4,000 images.Īt the time, only six of Lefevre's photographs were published in newspapers. In 1986, French photographer Didier Lefevre traveled illegally into Soviet-controlled Afghanistan with a medical team from Doctors Without Borders who were on a mission to set up a field hospital.

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The photographer by emmanuel guibert