Shomei Tomatsu’s Scarlet Flower

Shomei Tomatsu’s Scarlet Flower / Okinawa Diary

Tomatsu’s diary in images and words of Okinawa in the years after the islands’ reversion to Japanese control in 1972 following a period of sanctioned US military occupation in the aftermath of WWII. The islands were excluded from the provisions of the San Francisco Peace Treaty which officially returned sovereignty to Japan in 1952 (although there remained throughout the country a strong US military presence which intensified during the Cold War). Up until its reversion, Okinawa was used as the principal military staging site for covert air strikes over Northern Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, and a base for weapons during the war in Vietnam.

Tomatsu attends to those living out their lives on an island with white sands and birds of paradise in the shadow of war. Despite persistent campaigns to reduce the US military presence in Okinawa, over a dozen US military bases are still maintained on the islands to this day.

Hardcover, first edition, good condition with slight marks/foxing to dust jacket. 1976.