From the Land of Rice and Opium

From the Land of Rice and Opium is Sofia Yablonska’s second travelogue, written between 1932 and 1935 while she worked as a cinematographer in China and Indochina. Here the author vividly describes the many difficulties involved in filming documentaries and taking photographs in societies where people still believed that cameras could steal one’s soul. Yablonska’s narrative is dynamic and filled with colorful characters, unusual adventures and outright escapades. The book was first published in Lviv in 1936.