BOOK INFO
Hardcover, 10.5 X 8.25 In. / 164 Pages / 80 Color
ISBN 9780989798167
List Price: $45.00
“At once a historical archive, a moving portrait and a call to action, the photographic series captures the beauty of the human spirit even in the most nightmarish of circumstances.”,
- The Huffington Post, April 7, 2015
“Maj affords dignity to her subjects.”,
- American Photo Magazine, Best Photobooks of the Year, December 11, 2015
Also featured by: Time Magazine, NPR, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Vice, Hyperallergic
Photographs by Gabriela Maj
Over the course of four years (2010 – 2014), Polish-Canadian photographer Gabriela Maj travelled throughout Afghanistan to collect portraits and stories from inside the country’s women’s prisons, including the most notorious penitentiary for women, Badam Bagh, located on the outskirts of Kabul. Maj’s project is the largest record documenting the experiences of incarcerated women in Afghanistan produced to date. Her hauntingly beautiful, compassionate photographs, along with the accompanying personal stories of the inmates, are gathered together in her first monograph. The majority of the prisoners Maj documented were incarcerated for what are known in Afghanistan as “moral crimes,” accused of running away from forced marriages, being sold into prostitution, domestic slavery, physical violence generally conducted by their husbands, and rape and involuntary pregnancy. Being an independent female photographer enabled Maj to gain extraordinary access to her subjects with whom she established rapport and trust, visiting with many of the incarcerated women featured in the book over the course of multiple visits. Together, the voices in Almond Garden are a testimony to the human rights abuses many Afghan women continue to endure, and a call to action for the much-needed support in the battle for women’s rights in Afghanistan from the international community.