It's What I Do
Pages: 368
Edition: Hardcover
List Price: $29.95
Publisher: Penguin Press
ISBN: 9781594205378
First entered: 28th, Feb 2015
Number of weeks: 2
Book Summary
"A brutally real and unrelentingly raw memoir."--Kirkus (starred review)
War photographer Lynsey Addario’s memoir It’s What I Do is the story of how the relentless pursuit of truth, in virtually every major theater of war in the twenty-first century, has shaped her life. What she does, with clarity, beauty, and candor, is to document, often in their most extreme moments, the complex lives of others. It’s her work, but it’s much more than that: it’s her singular calling.
Lynsey Addario was just finding her way as a young photographer when September 11 changed the world. One of the few photojournalists with experience in Afghanistan, she gets the call to return and cover the American invasion. She makes a decision she would often find herself making—not to stay home, not to lead a quiet or predictable life, but to set out across the world, face the chaos of crisis, and make a name for herself.Addario finds a way to travel with a purpose. She photographs the Afghan people before and after the Taliban reign, the civilian casualties and misunderstood insurgents of the Iraq War, as well as the burned villages and countless dead in Darfur. She exposes a culture of violence against women in the Congo and tells the riveting story of her headline-making kidnapping by pro-Qaddafi forces in the Libyan civil war.Addario takes bravery for granted but she is not fearless. She uses her fear and it creates empathy; it is that feeling, that empathy, that is essential to her work. We see this clearly on display as she interviews rape victims in the Congo, or photographs a fallen soldier with whom she had been embedded in Iraq, or documents the tragic lives of starving Somali children. Lynsey takes us there and we begin to understand how getting to the hard truth trumps fear.As a woman photojournalist determined to be taken as seriously as her male peers, Addario fights her way into a boys’ club of a profession. Rather than choose between her personal life and her career, Addario learns to strike a necessary balance. In the man who will become her husband, she finds at last a real love to complement her work, not take away from it, and as a new mother, she gains an all the more intensely personal understanding of the fragility of life.Watching uprisings unfold and people fight to the death for their freedom, Addario understands she is documenting not only news but also the fate of society. It’s What I Do is more than just a snapshot of life on the front lines; it is witness to the human cost of war.
Authors
Name: Lynsey Addario
About the author:
Lynsey Addario is an American photojournalist who regularly photographs for The New York Times, National Geographic, and Time Magazine.
Lynsey began photographing professionally for the Buenos Aires Herald in Argentina 1996 with no previous photographic training or studies. She eventually began freelancing for the Associated Press in New York, where she worked for several years before moving abroad to New Delhi, India to cover South Asia.
In 2000, Addario first traveled to Afghanistan under Taliban rule to document life and oppression under the Taliban, and has since covered conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Lebanon, Darfur, and Congo. She photographs features and breaking news focused on humanitarian and human rights issues across the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa.
In 2015, American Photo Magazine named Lynsey as one of five most influential photographers of the past 25 years, saying she changed the way we saw the world's conflicts.
Lynsey’s recent bodies of work include an ongoing reportage on Syrian refugees around the region for The New York Times, ISIS’ push into Iraq, the civil war in South Sudan, and African and Middle Eastern migrants arriving on Sicily's shores for The New York Times. Addario was the official photographer for the Nobel Peace Center's 10th peace prize exhibition, photographing 2014 winners Malala Yousefzai and Kailash Satyarthi for an exhibition at the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo, Norway in December 2014.
Lynsey has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the MacArthur Fellowship, or 'Genius Grant' 2009; Overseas Press Club's Oliver Rebbot award for 'Best photographic reporting from abroad in magazines and books' for her series 'Veiled Rebellion: Afghan Women.' She was part of the New York Times team to win the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting, for her photographs in ‘Talibanistan’, Sept 7, 2008. In 2010 Lynsey was named one of 20 women on Oprah Winfrey's Power List, 2010, for her 'Power of Bearing Witness,' and one of Glamour Magazine’s 20 women of the year in 2011.
It's What I Do is her first book.
She received a BA at the university of Wisconsin-Madison, where she graduated with Honors, and speaks English, Spanish, and Italian.