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Lindsey Hilsum talks to Rosie Boycott

In Extremis: The Life of War Correspondent Marie Colvin

Hay Festival 2019, 

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, going in further and staying longer than anyone else. Marie covered the major conflicts of our time: Israel and Palestine, Chechnya, East Timor, Sri Lanka (where she was hit by a grenade and lost sight in her left eye, resulting in her trademark eye-patch), Iraq and Afghanistan. Her anecdotes about encounters with dictators and presidents – including Colonel Gaddafi and Yasser Arafat, whom she knew well – 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, including being smuggled into Syria where she was killed in 2012.