Yuka Komatsu (born 1982) is a Japanese photographer, mountaineer, and nonfiction writer. Born in Akita Prefecture, she took up serious mountaineering as a member of the Tokai University Alpine Club and in 2006 became the first Japanese woman to reach the summit of K2, the world’s second-highest mountain. The achievement earned her the Uemura Naomi Adventure Award. She later began documenting everyday life across Asia and the Middle East as a photographer and has reported continuously on the Syrian civil war and refugees since 2012. Her representative work, "Ningen no Tochi e," recounts her encounter in Syria with Radwan, a young man who lived with camels in the desert, and follows the destruction of his family’s life during the civil war. After being conscripted into the government army, Radwan refuses to turn his weapon against fellow Syrians, deserts, and crosses the border as a refugee. Through his experience, the book examines where people deprived of their homeland can find belonging and a reason to live, and it received the Mika Yamamoto International Journalist Award.
