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Love in a Time of War
- Narrated by: Lara Marlowe
- Length: 15 hrs and 23 mins
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Love in a Time of War
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Publisher's Summary
A memoir by Lara Marlowe, the Irish Times' correspondent in Paris.
Lara Marlowe first met Robert Fisk in 1983, in Damascus. He was already a famous war correspondent; she was a young American reporter who would soon become a renowned journalist in her own right. For the next 20 years, they were lovers, husband and wife, friends, occasionally estranged from and angry with each other.
They learned from each other and from the people in the ruined world they reported from: Lebanon, torn apart by a vicious civil war as well as Israeli and Syrian occupations; Iran, where they were the only journalists to interview the Middle East's chief hostage-taker and dispatcher of suicide bombers; the deadly Islamist revolt that claimed up to 200,000 lives in Algeria; the disintegration of former Yugoslavia and two US-led wars on Iraq. They survived encounters with murderous militiamen, sheltered together under artillery and aerial bombardment in Beirut, Belgrade and Baghdad. In countries under attack from their own governments they had to gain the trust of interlocutors who automatically assumed they were spies. Back home in the US and Britain, they were accused of partisan reporting because they refused to toe the party line.
Through all this they loved and respected each other, but their marriage eventually disintegrated, partly under the pressures of their work. Even after they separated they remained friends and wrote and spoke to each other affectionately.
This is at once a portrait of a remarkable man by a woman who loved him, the story of a Middle East broken by its own divisions and outside powers and a moving account of a relationship in dark times.
What listeners say about Love in a Time of War
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Robyn
- 29-01-2024
Praise - with reservations
Lara Marlowe is undoubtedly an outstanding journalist of courage and integrity who has many times put her life on the line to provide first-hand reports of terrorism and war. Her book details years of travel, danger, narrow escapes, meeting famous and infamous people, and overcoming obstacles to get her articles written and published with the prominence they deserved. My reservations stem from her use of Robert Fisk as a selling point. His name is in the sub-title, he is more prominent in the cover photo than she is, and the first word of the title is 'Love'. All of this strongly suggests that the story will be as much about Robert Fisk and 'Love' as it is about the 'Time of War'. I had read Robert Fisk's articles for decades and his books are on my bookshelf; he was one of the journalists I most admired. But I knew nothing about the personal Robert and that was my reason for buying the book. But then I remembered how zealously he had guarded his private life and I quickly turned up an interview in which he firmly stated that his private life was 'off limits'. So when, from the start, Lara was citing romantic notes, lines from letters and poetry that Robert had sent her, I became very uneasy. I felt he had been betrayed because, I strongly suspect, he never would have agreed to such private details being made public. Despite 'love' reminiscences scattered throughout the book, just one chapter specifically deals with their relationship, albeit openly and very movingly. But above all, the book is about Lara and her admirable journalism.
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