Josef Koudelka: Diaries

Distilled from 69 journals kept over the course of 50+ years, Josef Koudelka: Diaries offers a look inside the mind and artistic process of the iconoclastic Czech photographer renowned for a life in exile and legendary projects on the Roma, the 1968 Soviet-led invasion in Prague, and the devastating impact humans have on the landscape.

Koudelka: Diaries offers insight into the mind of this iconoclastic Czech photographer renowned for projects on the Roma, the 1968 Soviet invasion of Prague, and the impact humans have had on the landscape.

Over the course of fifty-plus years Josef Koudelka has kept nearly seventy journals. Distilled now into one richly illustrated volume, Koudelka: Diaries offers a look inside the mind of the iconoclastic Czech photographer renowned for his life in exile and a career that has included seminal projects on the Roma, legendary coverage of the 1968 Soviet invasion of Prague, and volumes on the often-devastating impact humans have had on the landscape. Revealed throughout the book are Koudelka’s thoughts on photographers, such as Henri Cartier-Bresson, and editors, curators, and friends, including Robert Delpire and Anna Fárová, along with notes on his legendary projects. Facsimiles of actual diary pages and images by the photographer, including self-portraits, lend the volume an immediacy and authenticity. Josef Koudelka: Diaries provides a perfect companion to Josef Koudelka: Next (2023), the visual biography by Melissa Harris, editor at large at Aperture, and has been brought together by the same creative collaborators: designer Aleš Najbrt and translators Derek and Marzia Paton.