Fosco Maraini

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Fosco Maraini (Florence 1912 – Florence 2004) was an Italian ethnologist, photographer, film-maker, mountaineer, writer, poet and professor.

Perhaps best known for his photographic work in Tibet and Japan, Maraini also photographed extensively in the Karakoram and Hindu Kush mountain ranges of Central Asia, in Southeast Asia and in the south of his native Italy. He accompanied the noted Italian Tibetologist Giuseppe Tucci on two expeditions to Tibet (1937 and 1948). He wrote dozens of books and articles (many of which have been translated into several languages), and taught Japanese cultural history at the University of Florence. He had numerous photographic exhibitions in Europe and Japan. Maraini's work in Tibet and on the Ainu people of Hokkaidō is of the utmost importance as historical documentation of two disappearing cultures.