Martha Gellhorn A Life

This is a magnificent biography of Martha Gellhorn, whose fearless reporting from the front made her a legend, and whose private life was often messy and volcanic. Ernest Hemingway sent her a telegram: ''Are you a war correspondent or my wife in bed?'' She shook herself free of him, and chose to go adventuring. Martha Gellhorn''s journalism tracks many of the flashpoints of the twentieth century. As a young woman, she was a witness of the suffering in America caused by the Depression. She risked her life in the Spanish Civil War, which was the subject of some of her finest writing. During the Second World War she covered the fall of Czechoslovakia and the Normandy Landings, the liberation of Dachau and the Nuremberg Trials. She reported from Vietnam and Israel; and at the age of 81 was covering the US invasion of Panama. All her life, Martha fought against injustice, and she always looked for the human story. She was influenced by two older women: her mother, who was a social reformer, and Eleanor Roosevelt. Her books of reporting and travel reflected her personality and her courage, her novels her shrewd and ironic eye; both were often very funny. Martha''s letters (many of which are quoted in this biography) are delightful - passionate, ebullient and no-holds-barred.