"MINAMATA" par W. Eugene SMITH & Aileen M. SMITH. Edition An Alskog-Sensorium Book – Holt, Rinehart & Winston, New York. 1975. Edition originale. Imprimé aux Etats-Unis. Petit in-4, dos droit, couverture souple cartonné titrée (état d'usage). 192 pages. Texte en anglais, illustré de près de 150 reproductions photographiques noir & blanc, in-texte et hors texte, pleine page pour la plupart dont de nombreuses en double page par W. Eugene Smith & Aileen M. Smith.

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"Minamata is a fishing and farming town on the southern Japanese island of Kyushu. Its people joined the industrial age when the Chisso Corporation built a chemical factory there. The disaster that then befell them, and the ways in which some have managed to respond, reach far beyond Japan. Their courage is a flag of hope for all life – but it will have signaled no victory unless it awakens other people to action in every corner of this planet… If you have heard of Minamata before this, it is because W. Eugene Smith, the photographer whose essays have been regarded as classics since he helped to invent the form thirty years ago, focused attention on what he calls "the widening damnations of pollution." Minamata's disease was recognized as methyl mercury poisoning from industrial wastes. The mercury reached people through contaminated fish… As groups of victims pressed a turbulent, multisided crusade to force industry and government to take responsibility, smith and his wife, Aileen, moved to Minamata. Smith, as always, is both observer and participant. During one demonstration, Chisso union men smashed him to the pavement so hard, crushing several vertebrae, that he feared he would never be able to hold another camera. Aileen Smith covered for both of them until he could raise his arm again…"

 

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