Lara Marlowe unveils memoir about life and work with Robert Fisk

Irish Times Paris correspondent previously a war correspondent alongside ex-husband

Fish and Marlowe covered many wars together as foreign correspondents.
Fish and Marlowe covered many wars together as foreign correspondents.

Irish Times Paris correspondent Lara Marlowe has launched her new memoir, Love in a Time of War: My Years with Robert Fisk.

Marlowe was previously a war correspondent alongside her ex-husband journalist Robert Fisk, who died in October 2020. The book was published on October 28th by Head of Zeus and the launch took place on Thursday in Fitzwilliam Square, Dublin.

The memoir was met with critical acclaim and Marlowe detailed her work with the esteemed war correspondent, as well as giving an insight into their relationship.

She and her husband covered many wars together as foreign correspondents, including in Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Algeria and the former Yugoslavia. Marlowe first met Fisk in Damascus almost 40 years ago, when she was a young reporter from the United States and he was a well-known British war correspondent.

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The first photograph of Robert Fisk and Lara Marlowe, taken by a stranger in Central Park on November 15th, 1987
The first photograph of Robert Fisk and Lara Marlowe, taken by a stranger in Central Park on November 15th, 1987
In December 1987, Robert kept his promise to take Lara for a camel ride in Egypt if she came to live with him
In December 1987, Robert kept his promise to take Lara for a camel ride in Egypt if she came to live with him
Lara Marlowe and Robert Fisk at their post-wedding brunch in London, February 14th, 1997
Lara Marlowe and Robert Fisk at their post-wedding brunch in London, February 14th, 1997

The memoir covers this meeting up until the last war they covered together, the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Though the couple divorced, they remained friends and respected one another and each other’s work.

In her memoir, she recalls the humanitarian atrocities they saw as a result of war and also details the effect the disintegration of their marriage had on her personally.

Marlowe was approached by a publisher about writing a memoir off the back of an article she wrote for The Irish Times to memorialise her ex-husband.

Last winter she flew from Paris to Dublin to write and completed the memoir in just over three months, using diaries, books, correspondence, photographs and articles she had written from 1988 to 2003, when she and Fisk worked together.