Under the Wire: Marie Colvin’s Final Assignment

The true story of iconic war correspondent Marie Colvin (called by her peers ＂the greatest war correspondent of her generation＂) featured in the film A Private War, produced by Charlize Theron and starring Rosamund Pike. Also the basis of the documentary Under the Wire.

Marie Colvin was an internationally recognized American foreign war correspondent who was killed in a rocket attack in 2012 while reporting on the suffering of civilians inside Syria. She was renowned for her iconic flair and her fearlessness: wearing the pearls that were a gift from Yasser Arafat and her black eye-patch, she reported from places so dangerous no other correspondent would dare to go.

Photographer Paul Conroy forged a close bond with Colvin as they put their lives on the line time and time again to report from the world’s conflict zones, and he was by her side during her final assignment. A riveting war journal, Under the Wire is Paul’s gripping, visceral, and moving account of their friendship and the final year he spent alongside her.

When Marie and Paul were smuggled into Syria by rebel forces, they found themselves trapped in one of the most hellish neighborhoods on earth. Fierce barrages of heavy artillery fire rained down on the buildings surrounding them, killing and maiming hundreds of civilians. Marie was killed by a rocket which also blew hole in Paul’s thigh big enough to put his hand through. Bleeding profusely, short of food and water, and in excruciating pain, Paul then endured five days of intense bombardment before being evacuated in a daring escape in which he rode a motorbike through a tunnel, crawled through enemy terrain, and finally scaled a 12-foot-high wall.

Astonishingly vivid, heart-stoppingly dramatic. and shot through with dark humor, in Under the Wire Paul Conroy shows what it means to a be a war reporter in the 21st century. His is a story of two brave people drawn together by a shared compulsion to bear witness.

Paul Conroy is a former British soldier. As a photographer and filmmaker whose work spans fifteen years, he has reported on conflicts in Iraq, Congo, Kosovo, Libya, and Syria.