Twice-kidnapped Lynsey Addario Speaks at Behrend on 'Love and War'

Thursday, Nov. 9

She was taken hostage in Libya while on assignment for The New York Times, and with was a gun to her head, she thought, "will I ever get my cameras back?"

In her compelling, frank, and gut-twisting interview with NPR in 2015, Lynsey Addario recounted some of the most horrifying moments of her captivity. Yet despite the terror of being held hostage (twice, in fact), subject to lawless cruelty and violence, the fleeting thought that ran through Addario's mind, right before the moment of her possible execution, speaks to the vocational devotion this war-zone photojournalist has for her work.

It's What I Do: A Photographer's Life of Love and War is the title of her 2015 memoir, which will encompass some of Addario's discussion at Penn State Behrend's McGarvey Commons in the Reed Union Building, part of the university's speaker series. Free and open to the public, Addario's presentation brings the horrors of war — often distant and abstract to many of us, who go about our lives safe and unperturbed — close to home; from the unique perspective not only of one who views violence and suffering through a camera lens, but from a woman, whose sex made her captivity particularly terrifying.

Addario's memoir covers not just the professional, but the personal: finding true love and understanding in her husband, and starting a family. It also speaks to the challenges of rethinking professional methodologies, such as putting oneself into considerable danger at the front lines of war zones, when there is now a young child back at home to consider. Audience members at Addario's presentation will surely leave with a sense of admiration for this courageous storyteller and a renewed appreciation for the fragility of human life. — Cara Suppa

7:30 to 9 p.m. // 4701 College Drive // behrend.psu.edu/tags/lynsey-addario // Free