Fraglich Publishing, 2021, hardcover, 104 pages, 15 x 20 cm
The story behind the images begins when an 11-year-old boy, Khalid Hadi, was made a photographer at a relief foundation in Kandahar for victims of the Soviet-Afghan war. He portrayed casualties of the conflict with a wooden box camera for three years. Later, he took pictures for the Taliban, but then fled to the United States, where by chance he met photographer Edward Grazda. This book illustrates a fraction of Khalid's photographs. The silent beauty of the weathered images suggests the shocking violence of an outrageous occupation. A piece of history almost forgotten outside of Afghanistan, it marks the very beginnings of certain international terrorist groups today.
