Inferno by James Nachtwey (Photographer), Luc Sante (Introduction)

From the Publisher

Humanitarian and photojournalist James Nachtwey is above all a witness on the side of the victims. In the disturbing worlds of conflict, rivalry and cruelty he sets out to communicate horrors that we often choose to ignore, addressing the victims' suffering and powerlessness with a clear and unflinching gaze. Working with unrivalled commitment, travelling from one disaster to the next on a harrowing schedule, Nachtwey has, over the last twenty years, confronted war, famine and the gravest geopolitical issues of our time. With a brutally compassionate stance, he witnesses the tragedies of today that frighteningly could be buried and forgotten. His pictures are inspired by an overwhelming belief in the human possibility of change, despite evidence to the contrary.

The work of a perfectionist, Inferno is Nachtwey's first major monograph. Featuring photographs from the last ten years, it guides us through Somalia's famine to genocide in Rwanda, from Romania's abandoned orphans and 'irrecoverables' to the lives of India's 'untouchables', from war in Bosnia to conflict in Chechnya, disclosing some of today's gravest examples of man's inhumanity to his fellow man.

Nachtwey's uncompromising images are published in all the leading international news magazines. A master in his field, he has built a reputation as one of the most fearless and focused of photographers and is the only four-time winner of the Robert Capa Medal for photography, an award that requires exceptional courage.

Civilization - Colin McGinn

Nachtway, who works mainly for Time magazine, himself risked death and injury during his visits to Somalia, Bosnia, Chechnya, Romania, Rwanda, Sudan, India, Kosovo, and Zaire in search of these pictures. He is clearly a compasionate and concerned man, intent on bringing home to us the world's horrors.

LA Times Book Review - David Rieff

[A] his magnificent, searing collection of pictures that are the distillation of the work Nachtwey has done over the last decade in the most terrible places in the world, from the orphanages of post-Ceausescu Romania to the killing fields of Rwanda...The book is not just a moral triumph but an aesthetic one.

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