After a first journey through the heart of Afghanistan, bicycle explorer Cédric Tassan returns to the far north, into the isolated mountains of the Wakhan Corridor. At more than 4,000 metres above sea level, between the impassable borders of Pakistan, China and Tajikistan, live the Wakhi, an Ismaili Muslim mountain people.
For centuries, they have maintained a fragile balance with a harsh natural environment, endured a relentless climate and preserved ancestral traditions. Tassan's account examines how this balance is being unsettled by a road under construction to connect Afghanistan with China as part of Beijing's New Silk Roads project.
The book describes explosives and bulldozers opening a track through formerly isolated valleys, and raises concerns about future truck traffic, urban development, water scarcity and climate change threatening village life. It also examines how the arrival of new populations, including Kuchi nomads and other Sunni groups, is changing religious and tribal relationships.
Against a background of ethnic tensions, resource shortages and anticipated pollution, Tassan asks what future awaits the Wakhi. Through the eyes of a filmmaker and photographer, this rare, sensitive and committed account gives voice to a people at a crossroads, whose story risks being drowned out by the noise of progress.
About the author
Cédric Tassan is a filmmaker and photographer who has been passionate about this region for several years. In his second book on Afghanistan, he sheds light on the intertwined destinies of the Wakhi and Hazara peoples living precariously in the country's mountains.
