Generation AK: The Afghanistan Wars 1993–2012 is a retrospective selection of images of the country where Stephen Dupont has covered everything from civil war and the rise of the Taliban in the 1990s, to the launch of Operation Enduring Freedom and the ongoing war on terrorism. Dupont completed much of this work on self-funded trips and as part of one of the last small independent photographic agencies, Contact Press Images, of which he has been a member since 1997. In 2008 he survived a suicide bombing while traveling with an Afghan opium eradication team near Jalalabad.
“Why Afghanistan? Its intrigue, its mystique drives me there; its fear and savagery keeps me thinking, creating, wondering; its timeless beauty keeps me smiling, awe inspiring. It’s in my face, there’s no escape: it’s a battlefield in my guts, surprising, shocking, al- ways real. I’m living on the edge of life out here, it feels like my first trip and sometimes my last. When I’m gone, I leave a little of myself behind.
Afghanistan is a complex place, best explained, I think, through a simple and personal approach. My diaries may entertain you or may offer insight into some of the adven- tures I’ve had over the past twenty years. At times they may shock you and at times, I hope, bring a smile. But my strength is photography, not writing, and through these images I hope you learn more about the people and history of Afghanistan than you do about me, a nomad with a Leica. I love photography, and I chose each photograph in this collection. It’s not always my best work, but it is a story. I’m really just a storyteller of pictures.
If my book can reawaken a sense of responsibility in anyone out there who will listen, then I will feel that I’ve achieved something. I hope my pictures help to refocus the flagging attention paid to Afghanistan and illustrate and illuminate both the individual suffering and the important socio-political story behind the photographs.”
-Stephen Dupont
BOOK
Generation AK The Afghanistan War 1993-2012
by Stephen Dupont
328 pages
Hardback
27.5 x 36.5 cm
English
ISBN 978-3-86930-727-5
1. Edition 07/2015
€ 78.00 incl. VAT
Free shipping
