"Michael Christopher Brown’s excellent photobook Libyan Sugar is perhaps the best attempt I’ve seen at depicting the human capital upon which war feeds."

HOUSTON CENTER FOR PHOTOGRAPHY
"This is a raw book. It bleeds all over you, it takes you on a journey that begins in the heart and goes to hell and back. It's the story of a young man finding his way, losing it and finding it again. It's the voices of worried parents, a concerned girlfriend, colleagues who encourage, colleagues who die. It's loss and grief and it's the pictures, the pictures. And then as Leonard Cohen said, "There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in." This book, though full of shadow, shines, oh so bright."

TIME MAGAZINE
"Libyan Sugar is not an easy book to sit with. The first time I tried to read it I gave up, crying, after 20 minutes. On the second attempt, it took me more than an hour to move through the 410 images of the Libyan revolution and the countless emails, diary entries and text messages between the author and his family and friends. I cried the second time too. War stories shouldn’t be easy, true war stories never are."

TIME MAGAZINE
"The world of Libyan Sugar is vividly real and tense, a masterful vision of war that is also close and personal."

LENSCULTURE
"Libyan Sugar is a chronicle of his experience heading to war for the first time. It is an extraordinary amalgamation of photo book and soul-searching."

WASHINGTON POST

Centered around the 2011 Libyan Revolution, Libyan Sugar is a road trip through a war zone, detailed through photographs, journal entries, and written communication with family and colleagues. A record of Michael Christopher Brown’s life both inside and outside Libya during that year, the work is about a young man going to war for the first time and his experience of that age-old desire to get as close as possible to a conflict in order to discover something about war and something about himself—perhaps a certain definition of life and death.

Winner of the Paris Photo First Book Award and the ICP Infinity Award for Artist’s Book.

Published by Twin Palms Publishers (Out of Print)

7 x 10 inches
280 four-color plates
412 pages

The artist’s last remaining signed, first edition, copies are available HERE.

Select Press:

ABC NEWS

BRITISH JOURNAL OF PHOTOGRAPHY

THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE

MEN’S JOURNAL

INFINITY AWARD FOR ARTIST’S BOOK

Michael Christopher Brown, a photojournalist with Magnum Photos, was in a rut, both personally and professionally. After spending years living in China, Brown knew he needed a change. While home in Beijing, he caught CNN’s coverage of the Libyan revolution and saw the opportunity for growth he was looking for. Caught up in the revolutionary spirit, Brown made a decision that would ultimately change the direction of his life; he left for Libya.

A year later, Brown was recovering from a near fatal injury, and the wounds of a loss that shook the photography community to its core.

Since 1985, the International Center of Photography has recognized outstanding achievements in photography with its prestigious Infinity Awards.

FILM

Libyan Sugar is a 30 minute, four-part motion diary centered around the Libyan Revolution, using mobile phone recordings Michael Christopher Brown made during 2010-2012.