Venezuelan photographer Silvana Trevale has released a photography book focused on the lives and identities of young people in Venezuela, presenting an alternative visual narrative to the country’s prolonged political and economic crisis.

The book, titled Venezuelan Youth, compiles photographs produced between 2016 and 2025 and has been published by guesteditions. The project documents children and adolescents across Venezuela through portraits, street photography and collaborative visual work intended to reflect social resilience, cultural continuity and everyday life.

Trevale said the project emerged from a personal effort to reconnect with her country after leaving Venezuela during a period of deepening instability. According to the photographer, repeated visits back to Venezuela over several years shaped both the emotional and artistic direction of the work.

The photographer said she wanted to move beyond images that focus exclusively on violence, economic hardship or institutional collapse, while still acknowledging the realities affecting Venezuelan society. “Photojournalism is important but I also wanted to break away from any harsh kind of imagery, without dismissing the problems,” Trevale said.

The GuardianHer comments reflect broader debates within documentary photography over the representation of countries facing prolonged crises. Venezuela has experienced years of economic contraction, shortages of food and medicine, mass migration and political instability. International coverage has often centered on humanitarian conditions and political conflict.

Trevale said her project aimed to document experiences that exist alongside those conditions, particularly among younger Venezuelans. She said the work focused on personal interactions and everyday encounters with children and adolescents, as well as visual expressions of local traditions and community life.“Our identity isn’t only defined by the crisis,” Trevale said. “All of us, whether we stayed or left, are marked by the crisis. It’s part of who we are, especially for my generation, who grew up with it.”

The GuardianAccording to publication materials released by Guest Editions, the book was conceived as a response to portrayals of Venezuela that emphasize collapse while overlooking the persistence of social and cultural life. The publisher described the work as an attempt to document “the complexities of Venezuelan identity as seen through the eyes of its youth.”

The volume contains 176 pages, including 93 colour plates, and was designed by Ricardo Báez. It was published in hardcover format in May 2026. Guest Editions +2Trevale said the project evolved gradually over nearly a decade. In its early stages, she said she did not actively pursue specific images, instead allowing encounters and situations to develop organically during her visits to coastal areas and urban neighbourhoods.

One image that became central to the project depicts two boys walking through a forest populated by vultures near Playa Medina in Venezuela. Trevale described the photograph as an attempt to capture “something between this harsh reality and a feeling of innocence”. She said the image helped shape the broader direction of the project over the following years.

As the project expanded, Trevale said she began collaborating with Venezuelan creative professionals interested in preserving aspects of national identity through visual culture. Fashion, music and traditional dance became recurring elements in the work.Among the traditions documented in the book is the Joropo, a musical and dance form widely associated with Venezuelan cultural heritage.

Trevale said she viewed the inclusion of such material as part of a wider effort to record traditions she believes risk being overlooked or diminished amid the country’s continuing upheaval. The project also includes portraits linked to Venezuela’s youth music programmes. Trevale recounted photographing a young trumpet player named Roberta during a Vogue Latin America assignment in Caracas.

According to Trevale, the girl participated in “El Sistema”, Venezuela’s internationally known youth orchestra initiative. Founded in 1975, El Sistema developed into one of Venezuela’s most prominent cultural institutions, using music education and orchestral training as a social development programme for children and adolescents.

The initiative later gained international recognition through conductors and musicians including Gustavo Dudamel. BooksTrevale said her work sought to balance documentation of hardship with depictions of dignity, connection and continuity. She described the project as shaped by both personal loss and long-term attachment to Venezuela.“I am hoping the book brings that back to young people, to remind them that we’re strong and resilient, and to celebrate our traditions and our people,” she said.

“I never want to forget where I come from — and this book is my love letter to Venezuela.” The release of Venezuelan Youth comes amid continuing international attention on Venezuela’s political and economic trajectory, as well as ongoing migration from the country.

Cultural producers and publishers inside and outside Venezuela have increasingly used books, exhibitions and digital media projects to document social experiences beyond conventional political reporting.The book is currently being distributed internationally through Guest Editions and other booksellers.

An author has described how reading and storytelling became a source of personal freedom during a childhood marked by bullying, shaping both their relationship with literature and the themes explored in their fiction.

According to the author, childhood experiences often left them feeling constrained and unable to experience the sense of ease and security they sought in everyday life. They said that books provided an alternative space in which they could exercise imagination, process difficult emotions and engage with experiences that felt inaccessible in their immediate surroundings.

The author said reading offered opportunities that extended beyond entertainment. Through stories, they found what they described as freedom, allowing them to explore emotions and perspectives that were difficult to express elsewhere.

Literature became a place where they could confront the effects of bullying and reflect on the fear those experiences created.While acknowledging the negative impact of being bullied, the author said those experiences also prompted them to seek broader intellectual and emotional horizons.

They noted that bullying narrowed aspects of their world by creating fear and limiting confidence, but at the same time encouraged them to pursue new forms of connection and understanding through books and storytelling.

“Being bullied forced me to find ways to make my world bigger,” the author said, describing reading as a means of expanding opportunities for imagination and self-discovery.The experience has continued to influence their professional work.

The author said their writing is informed by the books that provided comfort during challenging periods of their life. They aim to create stories that offer readers a similar sense of support and encouragement, particularly those who may be facing difficulties of their own.

According to the author, an important objective in their fiction is to produce narratives that balance realism with optimism. They said they understand the significance of finding books that connect with readers’ experiences while also providing reassurance and hope. That perspective has become a guiding principle in their approach to storytelling.

The author’s latest novel, described as a contemporary retelling of Little Women, provided an opportunity to explore themes related to family life and motherhood. Through the process of developing the novel, they examined their own ideas about parenting and family relationships, using fiction as a framework for reflection.

They said imagining and fictionalising what motherhood might feel like proved to be a significant creative experience. Writing allowed them to engage with questions and possibilities that had not been available to them in childhood, offering a space to explore different aspects of domestic life through narrative.

The author characterized the process as personally meaningful, explaining that fiction enabled them to revisit forms of imaginative play that had been difficult to access when they were younger. Storytelling, they said, created opportunities to engage with family dynamics and personal relationships in ways that extended beyond their own lived experiences.

According to the author, one of the defining qualities of fiction is its ability to create encounters with different people, perspectives and communities. Through writing, they said they are able to inhabit a variety of worlds and experiences, broadening their understanding of human relationships and social realities.

This capacity for exploration remains central to their understanding of literature. The author suggested that stories serve not only as vehicles for entertainment but also as mechanisms for connection, empathy and discovery. By creating fictional characters and settings, writers are able to investigate experiences that may differ significantly from their own.

The author’s comments highlight the role literature can play in helping individuals navigate difficult circumstances. Reading provided a means of coping with feelings of isolation and fear during childhood, while writing later became a way of transforming those experiences into creative work.

In both cases, stories functioned as a means of expanding possibilities rather than accepting limitations.The relationship between personal experience and creative expression is evident throughout the author’s account.

Experiences of bullying shaped the search for refuge in books, while those same experiences later influenced the desire to write stories that offer encouragement and understanding. The progression from reader to writer reflects an effort to recreate for others the sense of possibility that literature once provided.

The author emphasized that stories have the ability to meet readers at particular moments in their lives. For individuals facing uncertainty, loneliness or adversity, books can provide both recognition and perspective. That belief informs their commitment to producing fiction that is accessible, uplifting and rooted in human connection.

Their latest work continues that approach by examining themes of family, care and belonging through a contemporary adaptation of a well-known literary text. By reimagining elements of Little Women, the author sought to engage with enduring questions about relationships, identity and the meaning of home while also incorporating their own reflections on motherhood.

Throughout the creative process, the author said fiction offered a space where imagination and personal experience could intersect. Through storytelling, they were able to revisit aspects of childhood, explore alternative possibilities and engage with lives beyond their own.

For the author, that process represents one of literature’s most enduring strengths.The author said that reading first provided the freedom they struggled to find elsewhere, while writing later became a means of extending that freedom through stories designed to offer comfort, understanding and hope to others.

Actor Hannah Murray has offered a deeply personal account of psychosis, involuntary psychiatric treatment and the breakdown of her sense of reality in a forthcoming memoir, describing a period in which she believed she possessed supernatural abilities and played a central role in humanity’s salvation.

In an extract from her memoir, The Make-Believe: A Memoir of Magic and Madness, Murray recounts her experiences while undergoing a severe mental health crisis that ultimately led to her being detained under the UK’s Mental Health Act.

The actor, widely known for portraying Gilly in the television series Game of Thrones, describes a state in which ordinary events were interpreted through an elaborate belief system involving magic, destiny and spiritual transformation.

According to the memoir extract, Murray believed she had become a “Ritual Master” and viewed routine interactions within a hospital setting as part of a larger supernatural narrative. Medical staff, patients and family members were assigned symbolic roles within a reality she perceived as fundamentally altered.

She recounts being brought food and drink by a healthcare worker but refusing to eat, believing instead that she no longer required conventional nourishment. During this period, she writes that she considered herself entirely self-sufficient and capable of surviving through spiritual energy rather than physical needs.

As her condition intensified, Murray describes wandering hospital corridors while waiting for what she believed would be the arrival of an important figure connected to her perceived mission. She interpreted events around her through the lens of a complex belief system that blended personal experiences, spirituality, popular culture and fantasy.

One of the most emotionally significant moments in the account involves a phone call from her mother. Murray writes that when she first heard her mother’s distressed voice, she viewed the conversation not as a family member trying to reach her, but as part of a test designed to pull her back into ordinary reality.

She recalls ending the first call before answering again when her mother phoned back. During the second conversation, Murray attempted to reassure her that she was safe and believed she was in a positive place despite the growing concerns of those around her.

The memoir describes how medical professionals informed her that she was being sectioned under the Mental Health Act, a legal process that allows individuals experiencing severe mental illness to be detained and assessed when they may pose risks to themselves or are unable to recognise their condition.

At the time, however, Murray writes that the information had little impact because it did not fit within the reality she believed she was experiencing. References to legal procedures, assessment periods and patient rights appeared disconnected from the worldview that had taken hold during her psychosis.

Instead, she says she remained focused on what she perceived as powerful energies moving through her body and voices that reinforced her convictions. Throughout the episode, Murray believed she possessed extraordinary abilities and unlimited creative powers.

The actor describes pacing hospital corridors while delivering what she considered a profound performance, convinced she was simultaneously a magician, actor, writer and spiritual guide.

She believed she could perform any conceivable action and viewed herself as possessing superhuman capabilities.The memoir further details grandiose beliefs commonly associated with psychotic episodes. Murray writes that she became convinced she had prevented an apocalypse and served as a central figure in humanity’s future.

She interpreted cultural references, films and professional experiences as evidence supporting those conclusions.Among those interpretations was her belief that a 2016 film, The Girl with All the Gifts, contained messages connected to her perceived role in world events.

She viewed the title itself as a reflection of her identity during the episode.Murray also writes that her acting career took on symbolic significance within the delusional framework. Professional collaborations and casting decisions were reimagined as part of a larger cosmic narrative.

She came to believe that her work in television and film had been preparing her for a destiny connected to the survival and transformation of the world.The account illustrates how psychosis can fundamentally alter a person’s perception of reality, leading ordinary experiences to acquire extraordinary meanings.

Mental health specialists often describe psychosis as a condition in which individuals may experience delusions, hallucinations or disordered thinking that make it difficult to distinguish between subjective beliefs and external reality.Murray’s memoir presents those experiences from her own perspective, allowing readers to follow the internal logic that shaped her thinking during the crisis.

Rather than reflecting on the events solely through hindsight, the narrative recreates the certainty with which she held those beliefs at the time.The extract forms part of a broader memoir examining Murray’s experiences with mental illness, recovery and identity.

By documenting her psychotic episode in detail, she offers an account of how severe mental health conditions can affect perception, relationships and decision-making.The book is scheduled for publication by Cornerstone and explores both the onset of Murray’s illness and the process of understanding what happened after the crisis ended.

The actor is also due to discuss the memoir publicly during an event in London alongside Jessie Cave.For Murray, the memoir represents an effort to chronicle a period in which reality itself became unstable, transforming familiar people, places and experiences into elements of a narrative that felt entirely real at the time but was ultimately shaped by psychosis.

In 2014 the peaceful city of Raqqa in northern Syria was proclaimed the capital of the Islamic State group’s so-called caliphate. For nearly four years, residents there lived under a reign of terror.

A new book out in French brings their stories to the world. “L’Asphyxie : Raqqa, chronique d’une apocalypse” (“Asphyxiation: Raqqa, Chronicle of an Apocalypse”) is co-written by French reporter Céline Martelet and Syrian journalist Hussam Hammoud.

Hammoud has just arrived in France where he has been granted asylum after an initial rejection by French authorities. The two authors joined us for Perspective.