The Life of War Correspondent Marie Colvin

In Extremis

The gripping life story of the great war correspondent Marie Colvin told by one of her closest friends

An extraordinary account of one reporter's fearless and ultimately fatal dedication... Hilsum draws an empathetic portrait of a woman whose courage often crossed into recklessness, both in combat zones and outside them... Now, thanks to Hilsum's deeply reported and passionately written book, Colvin has the full accounting that she deserves

A wonderful book – a fitting tribute, certainly, but also a well-told tale of a remarkable life

A stunningly good biography – compelling, revelatory and very moving. Lindsey Hilsum is the perfect writer to tell the story of Marie Colvin's rackety, brave and charismatic life

Writing a biography of Marie Colvin is like capturing lightning in a bottle, but Lindsey Hilsum has the knowledge and personal experience to help us understand what drew Colvin to rush towards the eye of the storm at such great risk. It is a superbly fitting tribute

Rarely has a friend and colleague written such a brave and uncompromising testament to such a rare, brave and uncompromising woman. Would that a few more of us should be so blessed in our courage and our friends

Hilsum marshals not just empathy for her subject, who was also a friend, but investigative and critical skills and damn fine storytelling... Hilsum's understanding of the background to each conflict, and the reality of life as a correspondent in the field, is one of the great strengths of the book... In Extremis rescues Marie Colvin from the rubble of Baba Amr, and brings her tragically, and tenderly, to life

Superb. A fitting account of the life of one of the finest war correspondents of our time, written by another. I admired Marie greatly, and In Extremis showed me I was right to do so

The clearest and most rounded picture...emerges from Hilsum's book. Colvin herself, courageous and often tortured, rises again from its pages

One of the modern world’s most experienced and admired foreign correspondents, Lindsey Hilsum, has now written a riveting, intimate and deeply moving account of the epic life of her late friend and colleague, Marie Colvin, who will be long remembered – not least because of Hilsum’s fine work in this book – as amongst the great war reporters of her generation

An inspiring and intimate biography of one of the bravest journalists of our time by one of her finest colleagues. Lindsey Hilsum takes us inside the world of a woman who changed the world around her

Marie Colvin was a one-off, eccentric, brilliant and sometimes maddening. Lindsey Hilsum does her justice

Colvin’s energy and passion were irresistible… Hilsum…[combines] storytelling with asking important questions about what kind of service war correspondents perform and what ethical codes they should adhere to

One of the best biographies I have read about any journalist... This is a great story, well told... What makes the biography and the life on which it is based so impressive is the truly heroic proportions of Colvin's dedication to getting the story of human beings trapped in war

In Extremis seeks to unravel the mystery behind the war correspondent... Hilsum avoids hagiography...and pulls no punches

Hilsum crafts a full and rich portrait of Colvin that never becomes hagiography. In Extremis is an intensely human account that does justice to its subject

In writing this richly researched and well-crafted account, Hilsum avoids canonising Saint Marie of Fleet Street... That it fell to someone else to do the reporting on her remarkable life story may seem tragic. It is also, perhaps, a measure of just who she was

In Lindsey Hilsum, Marie Colvin has found, posthumously, the right biographer. She penetrates the war-zone of Colvin’s life, and fetches her back in all her beautiful, brave complexity. This is a heartbreaking portrait that does not detract from the legend, but understands the compulsions which returned Colvin time and again to seek out the most dangerous places

True to the spirit of Marie, the biography is dramatic, a swirl of parties and people and a burning desire to be truthful about the pain of the world

As this intimate biography by Lindsey Hilsum, a fellow (female) reporter, shows, Colvin's gift was writing, passionately, about ordinary lives during war... With the help of Colvin’s diaries, Hilsum deftly explores her complex motives... She was often the first, or only, reporter to go in, and the last out, even if that meant trekking over a mountain range

In Extremis reveals the human vulnerability behind the bravery

In clear, calm prose, and making good use of private diaries and notebooks, Hilsum has written of her friend which, while giving her full credit for her courage and achievements, does not put her on a pedestal... Hilsum's excellent book is too thoughtful to support the legend altogether, but it does justice to her subject

In Extremis succeeds brilliantly in honouring a brave and hugely influential journalist, while allowing the real woman, with all her strength, intelligence and human frailty, to shine through... a gripping and very moving book.

Hilsum writes with both deep affection and a friend’s candidness to present us with a human being

[Marie Colvin’s] incredible career and turbulent personal life are skilfully and sensitively recorded by fellow war correspondent Lindsey Hilsum

Hilsum is a former colleague, well placed to chart her friend’s life, with an especially brilliant account of her final week, where Colvin’s exposure to peril again went beyond the call of duty

[Hilsum’s] tone is admiring but never adulatory, and her book is richly informed by her close knowledge of the events described… [an] excellent book

Lindsey Hilsum… in this account… [shows] just how brim full of life and heart Colvin was: from the start to the finish of her brilliant career, and of her sassy, rambunctious life

[An] excellent biography… I found it inspirational

This is a remarkable book, deeply moving, disturbing in its sometime intensity… such is the power of Lindsey Hilsum’s book

Colvin’s tumultuous life has inspired a number of recent accounts… it is Hilsum’s biography, written by a woman who both knew Colvin and had access to her unpublished reporting notes and private diaries, that seems to most closely capture her spirit.

Hilsum writes with admiration and compassionate understanding of her colleague, and of their collegial friendship that gets close to what we can, without sentiment, call love.

The gripping life story of the great war correspondent Marie Colvin told by one of her closest friends 
 
SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA BIOGRAPHY AWARD 
WINNER OF THE JAMES TAIT BLACK AWARD 
 
Marie Colvin was glamorous, hard-drinking, braver than the boys, with a troubled and rackety personal life. She reported from the most dangerous places in the world and her anecdotes about encounters with figures like Colonel Gaddafi and Yasser Arafat were incomparable. She was much admired, and as famous for her wild parties as for the extraordinary lengths to which she went to tell the story. 
 
Fellow foreign correspondent Lindsey Hilsum draws on unpublished diaries and interviews with friends, family and colleagues to produce a story of one of the most daring and inspirational women of our times. 
 
A Sunday Times Book of the Year 
'A stunningly good biography' WILLIAM BOYD

Lindsey Hilsum

Innovative... I Brought the War with Me isn’t just an excellent anthology. It also makes one reflect, not always comfortingly, on news reporters, poets and their relation to the terrible deeds of the world

I can think of no better use of poetry in any anthology I have ever read: a profound, revelatory, distressing and timely account of humanity at war

As long as there has been war, there have been poets chronicling it; Lindsey Hilsum has woven poems and war stories together to bring us darkness and light in the most moving magical way

A fantastic, beguiling and movingly profound book. Memorable and inspiring

'A really good book... [and] very interesting memoir'

A book of great power and poignancy... Lindsey Hilsum has no end of courage, sustained by an intellectual and emotional hinterland that makes her the finest foreign affairs journalist of her generation

Lindsey Hilsum writes beautifully, with so much integrity, sensitivity, true experience and courage, her prose combines with these poems to form a profoundly affecting work. The depth, the sensitivity, the reaching for truth, across cultures, through so many awful wars. It's all here in this book

From Ukraine to Iraq, to Rwanda, Syria, West Bank, and beyond Lindsey Hilsum takes us on a global journey punctuated by wars, death and destruction, but also by verses of poetry-- sounds of muses that refused to be silent when the cannons were heard

Lindsay Hilsum’s unflinching accounts of human conflicts take us to the frontline and witness the painful devastation in Ukraine, Iraq, Rwanda, Syria and many war-torn places beyond recognition. Sharp-eyed, tender yet unsentimental, Hilsum’s prose, juxtaposed with poetry, has created a terrifying dance of death and a soaring dance of hope. It’s an unforgettable reading experience

Incredibly moving, resonant and thought-provoking. Everyone who has been affected in some way by war &ndash; and that's everyone &ndash; should read Lindsey Hilsum's I Brought the War with Me. The excellent twinning of reportage and poetry creates a space in which revealing connections are sparked. It offers solace, invites empathy, re-sensitises, and helps us to think deeply about war and its terrible effects. I know I'll return to it frequently

Reading I Brought the War with Me you&rsquo;re reminded that even in humanity&rsquo;s darkest moments, language provides light, a light that can sometimes redeem us, maybe even save us from permanent horror and despair. This is a profound, and profoundly moving book

Stories and Poems from the Front Line

I was standing outside an apartment block that had been split apart by a missile. The words of a poem came to me when I could no longer find my own. 
 
In nearly four decades as a journalist covering conflict from Palestine to Kosovo to Rwanda, Channel 4 News International Editor Lindsey Hilsum has always carried a book of poetry. It helps her make sense of the senseless, salve her soul as the world around her rages, and remember those she has met in the darkest of times. 
 
In Ukraine, she tweeted a poem a day, and people began to read, to share, to ask for more. Here, Lindsey collects her favourite poems from ancient times to modern, translated from different languages and by writers from all around the world. Alongside each, she recalls a memory from her own work, whether interviewing the warlords of Bosnia and Sudan, meeting child soldiers in Uganda or giving testimony about the genocide in Rwanda. Her prose reveals comic absurdity and astonishing courage, meaning and its absence, unexpected moments of love and the untold consequences that come long after most cameras disperse. She explores the pity of war – and its fatal attraction. 
 
Vital, authentic, a read like no other, this is the first account Lindsey has written of her experience, accompanied by the voices of poets through the ages who have fought, witnessed terror or fled their homes, yet found the words to capture their humanity.

Lindsey Hilsum

Praise for I Brought the War with Me

Innovative... I Brought the War with Me isn’t just an excellent anthology. It also makes one reflect, not always comfortingly, on news reporters, poets and their relation to the terrible deeds o ...

I can think of no better use of poetry in any anthology I have ever read: a profound, revelatory, distressing and timely account of humanity at war

As long as there has been war, there have been poets chronicling it; Lindsey Hilsum has woven poems and war stories together to bring us darkness and light in the most moving magical way

Innovative... I Brought the War with Me isn’t just an excellent anthology. It also makes one reflect, not always comfortingly, on news reporters, poets and their relation to the terrible deeds o ...

I can think of no better use of poetry in any anthology I have ever read: a profound, revelatory, distressing and timely account of humanity at war

As long as there has been war, there have been poets chronicling it; Lindsey Hilsum has woven poems and war stories together to bring us darkness and light in the most moving magical way

Innovative... I Brought the War with Me isn’t just an excellent anthology. It also makes one reflect, not always comfortingly, on news reporters, poets and their relation to the terrible deeds o ...

I can think of no better use of poetry in any anthology I have ever read: a profound, revelatory, distressing and timely account of humanity at war

As long as there has been war, there have been poets chronicling it; Lindsey Hilsum has woven poems and war stories together to bring us darkness and light in the most moving magical way

Books by Lindsey Hilsum

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