An Awkward Pause by Hawre Khalid

An Awkward Pause is a photography and literary book on war, love, life and resilience from the start of the ISIS war until the present, the only comprehensive book to date to be published internationally by a Kurdish photojournalist.

The photographs trace not only the rise and collapse of ISIS, but the lives caught in between — civilians navigating ruined cities, fighters facing moral exhaustion, families rebuilding in silence, and communities shaped by loss long after liberation was declared. Accompanying texts offer rare insight into the moments behind the camera: scenes too complex, too vulnerable, or too personal to fit within traditional media narratives.

Interwoven throughout the book is the author’s own story — of repeated displacement, of choosing to give up safety in Europe to return to Iraq, and of carrying the weight of witnessing across eight wars. The result is not a conventional war archive, but a meditation on memory, responsibility, and the cost of documenting violence from within it. Ultimately, this book is about what remains after conflict: the emotional ruins, the resilience of ordinary people, and the act of bearing witness when forgetting would be easier. The book includes a foreword by VII Foundation photographer Ed Kashi.

Price: 55€

Shipping Fee: Europe: 5€, rest of countries: 15€ 

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