Publisher: Harperpress (2012)
“Bravery is personal” writes Marie Colvin on October 10, 1999.
And her bravery sadly cost her life. Marie Colvin, winner of the of the Orwell Special Prize was an award winning Sunday Times war correspondent reporting from conflict zones across the world losing her life tragically in Syria amidst raging battle lines.
This book is a collection of her journalistic reporting …… a huge canvas painted with vivid colors of brutality and terror.
From 1987 to 2012. You name it and she had been there. Spanning from Iran-Iraq. Libya. Middle East. Kosovo. Chechenya. East Timor. Sri Lanka….and countless others.
Her reporting is stark with blunt facts and images graphically penned down. In fact all her stories begin with people …… their pain and helplessness staring at the reader in the face. Her reporting reflects her desire to document, her search for truth and her conviction to take the risks.
This book has her interviews with Yaseer Arafat, and her queer encounters with Col Gadaffi. She documented the cruel brutality of Saddam Hussain and his son Uday Hussain’s doubles account is shocking.
The book fluctuates between timelines which can get a bit confusing and one needs to go back to check the dates.
Her escape from Chechenya in 2000 reads like a thriller and brings home the fact the dangers she continuously endured to report. Travelling and crisscrossing across the globe, it was in Sri Lanka wherein she was reporting on Tamil tigers, that she lost her eye when she was hit by a sharpnel in 2001. But she continued her career with a one-eye patch until she lost the battle in 2012.
East Timor in 1999 was another example of her dogged determination when she along with three other journalists stayed behind after many of her colleagues returned home in face of threat and warnings to life. Holed up in the UN compound, her broadcast were the window to the world bringing attention to the plight of UN staff and refugees trapped and seeking shelter from the militia. Marie Covin won world wide praise for sticking around in East Timor and pressurising the UN to protect the refugees.
This entire book reflects her burning need to report the truth. Her tenacity, her empathy and her single-minded determination. A chronicle on the mindless violence and senseless brutalities across the world.
In 2012, while reporting from the besieged areas of Baba Amr in Syria, she tragically lost her life. Later on in a case filed, the US federal court found Syria’s government liable for her targetted killing.
A hollywood biopic, ‘A Private War’ and a documentary ‘Under the wire’ had been released later documenting her life.
This book portrays her life ….a tale of bravery and honesty.
And this book documents history……..senseless tales of terror and cruelty.
Preeta Chag 