Photograph by Sandra Sebastián

Abstract

The photographs displayed on this issue of Dixit were originally used to illustrate the daily news coverage and as such delivered by Guatemalan photographer Sandra Sebastián to the press in her country. Before her lens incidents from everyday life and politics mingle and alternate with the violent episodes that have characteristically set the press agenda during the last fifty years. Since the peace agreement of 1996 put an end to 36 years of civil war resulting in 200000 thousand dead, 45000 missing people and about 100000 displaced people, Guatemala has been undergoing a postwar period.

A graduate in journalism from two universities (San Carlos de Guatemala and Panamericana) who is a Master in Visual Anthropology from the University of Barcelona, Sandra Sebastián has exhibited her work in Guatemala and the United States, has published her photographs in books and reviews both in and outside Guatemala, and has received several awards. At present she is a photo-journalist and an editor of Plaza Pública (www.plazapublica.com.gt).