In Extremis: The Life of War Correspondent Marie Colvin

by Lindsey Hilsum

‘In fiction, the writer’s voice matters; in reporting the writer’s authority matters,’ he wrote in ‘The Legend on the License’, a 1980 essay for The Yale Review. ‘It is very simple … All we need to do is insist on two rules: the writer of fiction must invent. The journalist must not invent.’

In her notes on his classes she jotted down his citation of Freud’s generalisation, ‘Man responds to novelty, woman to habituation.

Talking to him, I hear the dark voice I try to suppress: am I merely a voyeur, taking advantage of people in extremis? Did anything I wrote or photographed matter? He knows it’s not all misery for us. There’s the adrenalin rush of life-and-death situations. There are the boring details of life you can leave behind. Face up to everything, McCullin says. I have.

After all the years of mixed emotions, her pride in her daughter’s achievements always tempered by worry over her safety, Rosemarie decided that no journalist would leave that day without a quote. ‘The reason I’ve been talking to all you guys is that I don’t want my daughter’s legacy to be ‘no comment’ … because she wasn’t a “no comment” person,’ she said. ‘Her legacy is: be passionate and be involved in what you believe in. And do it as thoroughly and honestly and fearlessly as you can.’