First published 2001
Deborah Copaken Kogan graduates from Harvard in 1988 and moves to Paris with cameras and ambition. She wants to photograph war up close. Within weeks she sits veiled in the back of a truck in Afghanistan, the sole woman and only journalist among rebel fighters. A French photographer she trusted with her heart and her plans proves as unreliable as combat itself. Kogan travels from Zimbabwe to Romania, Russia to Haiti, chasing stories and following the men in her life. She faces sexism, violence, and assault while documenting historical upheavals and human suffering. Her photographs eventually appear on front pages worldwide. The photojournalism brotherhood accepts her after years of struggle. But what once felt like adventure begins to burden her. Death surrounds her work while life calls to her spirit. She discovers that existence itself, not its ending, deserves celebration above all else.
Genres: adventure, biography-memoir, 21st-century, journalism
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, overcoming-adversity
Setting: Afghanistan, Haiti, Paris, Romania, Russia, Zimbabwe
Period: 1988
365 pages · Paperback · Florent Massot
Content warnings: sexism, violence