Sur les pas des cavaliers

The new photography biennale,Photoquai, that has just opened in Paris, puts the accent on far away realities. This book could have been included in the program: the author is a photographer who straddles two worlds (he has Vietnam origins and left his country with the boat people) and his object is Afghanistan, one of the most beautiful and least accessible countries in the world. Following in the footsteps of Kessel and his novel Les Cavaliers, Alain Buu shows us epic stampedes in the steppe, snow capped summits as pointed as Hodler’s and the famous blue lakes (which the black and white grain of the photos turns almost palpable). There is also a striking image for the defenders of heritage: an improvised volley-ball game in the midst of jeeps and canon carcasses, in front of the empty niches of the Bamian buddhas…

• Sur les pas des cavaliers, photographs by Alain Buu, texts by Joseph Kessel and Alain Velter, Gallimard, 2007, ISBN : 978-2-7424-2186-2, 124 p., 36 €.