In fact, it’s right there in the first few pages. The idea of gawking at devastation through a camera lens comes up early - and often - in Holiday in Cambodia, Melbourne writer Laura Jean McKay’s first story collection. Is it right or wrong, a sign of intellectual curiosity or tasteless voyeurism, to take a picture of a bomb crater? To look at bullet holes, spread across the body of an apartment building like mosquito bites, and think that might make a cool Instagram photo? But visiting even twenty years after the market bombings and snipers’ bullets makes you question your motives. Apart from being visually stunning - a collection of low-set buildings and homes, part European, part Ottoman, nestled below a mountain range - the city is the Jerusalem of Europe, a mix of faces, foods and politics. The capital of Bosnia Herzegovina is a lovely place. It was on a long bus ride toward Sarajevo, past shells of houses full of grass and dirt, that I first became aware of the idea of atrocity tourism.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |