Sheikh, Fazal: The Victor Weeps - Afghanistan

Scalo

1998

First Edition

Photographer and journalist Fazal Sheikh traveled to Afghanistan to document the ravages of this long war, recording ruined villages, desolate landscapes, and damaged people. These survivors tell stories of murdered family members (some of whom remained where they fell in battle or massacre for months before at last being buried), of nearly unimaginable terror and hardship, and of hope for a better future; as one refugee, a widow called only Roghul, remarks, "I have been told that my home has been completely destroyed in the civil war, but I still hold on to the hope that there will be a time when I can return to the land where I was born. I will return when the government gives its people jobs rather than Kalashnikovs." Sheikh's searing photographs and oral histories are a terrifying portrayal of the hell of war. --Gregory McNamee