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Hardcover - (November 1, 2001) 276 pages
Editorial Reviews
From Booklist
*Starred Review* For three years (1991-93), photographer Sherbell, working
for the German magazine Der Spiegel, canvased the Soviet Union for images
of a society that many sensed was about to change drastically. Although
his pictures reach American eyes 8 to 10 years later, that doesn't diminish
their impact at all. All done in black and white, they are gray and grim,
raw and rueful, lightened only occasionally by a smile, a celebration,
a moment of prayer. Displayed thematically in chapters on everyday life,
work, religious practice, imprisonment, coal and oil production, "Magnitka"
(the largest, most polluting steelworks in the world), and change as Communism
collapsed, they appear mostly at near-monumental scale, bled to the edges
of 13-inch-tall pages. Reflecting the realities of most Soviet citizens,
they are full of dilapidated mass housing, antiquated industrial facilities,
barren shops, and hard manual labor. Sherbell tersely describes the situation
and import of each picture in notes at the ends of the chapters, disclosing
such frightening facts behind the images as that half the imprisoned are
alcoholics and 40 percent of teenage prisoners come from fatherless families,
that the environmental damage wreaked by the huge Sakhalin Island oil fields
during 70 years' operation may require 80 years to repair even minimally,
and that life expectancy in many parts of the old union was only 50 years
when the pictures were made. The last sentence in the book asks, "Will
this ever become a 'normal country'?" Unfortunately, the jury is still
out on that question. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
from the introduction by Serge Schmemann
"I know that time spent in . . . that black-and-white world that Shepard
Sherbell has captured will stay with me forever."
Book Description
This unparalleled collection of photographs documents the years surrounding
the collapse of the Soviet Union. Through the camera lens Shepard Sherbell
tells a story that language alone cannot. He captures in more than 200
black-and-white images the previously unseen reality of everyday life in
the fifteen former Soviet republics. In these photographs--sometimes humorous,
amazing, or troubling, always enthralling--Sherbell offers an unprecedented
view of people caught in the crucial moment of transition between communism
and capitalism, repression and freedom, security and anarchy. On assignment
for the German weekly Der Spiegel, Sherbell traveled throughout the dismantled
Soviet Union from 1990 to 1993 with more freedom than a citizen could have
achieved. Unrestricted in his access to subject matter, he recorded the
faces and lives of those who inhabit what was once a superpower. Mothers,
mine workers, prisoners, farmers, housewives, children--Sherbell shows
us without sentimentality how life looked for a people whose awe-inspiring
capacity to survive has been--and continues to be--tested. Serge Schmemann
provides a general retrospective and moving introduction to the book.
From the Publisher
Support for the publication of this book was provided by Corbis and
by Canon USA
About the Author
Shepard Sherbell is a documentary photographer represented by Saba Photos,
Inc. For more than twenty-five years he has been based in London, Paris,
Washington, Prague, Moscow, and now New York. Among the many awards he
has received for his work are those from the Canon Photo Essayist Award,
Overseas Press Club of America, National Press Photographers' Association/University
of Missouri Pictures of the Year, White House News Photographers' Association,
and Communication Arts. Serge Schmemann is deputy foreign editor of the
New York Times. He has served as New York Times Bureau Chief in Moscow
and received a Pulitzer Prize in 1990.
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