The Bang-Bang Club, Movie Tie-in : Snapshots From a Hidden War

The Bang-Bang Club is the story of four young photographers who covered the last years of apartheid, taking many of the most memorable photographs of the period. In this stunning new book, the group's two surviving members recount their political, emotional, and personal journeys through these violent years as South Africa moved toward democracy. Along the way we accompany them on free-lance assignments to other war-torn regions, including the former Yugoslavia and the Sudan, where one member of the group shoots what has become a world-famous photograph of a starving child stalked by a vulture. The boldness that earned the group its nickname, that prompted them to rush headlong into dangerous situations in pursuit of an image, forces them to consider difficult questions that lie at the heart of their work: When does their sense of humanity overwhelm their ambition and professional duties? When do they put aside their cameras and their impartiality and get involved? These are the moral dilemmas that the Bang-Bang Club grappled with on a daily basis. The Bang-Bang Club was a group of four young war photographers, friends and colleagues: Ken Oosterbroek, Kevin Carter, Greg Marinovich and Joao Silva, war correspondants during the last years of apartheid, who took many of the photographs that encapsulate the final violent years of racist white South Africa. Two of them won Pulitzer Prizes for individual photos. Ken, the oldest and a mentor to the others, died, accidentally shot while working; Kevin, the most troubled of the four, committed suicide weeks after winning his Pulitzer for a photograph of a starving baby in the Sudanese famine. Written by Greg and Joao, The Bang-Bang Club tells their uniquely powerful war stories. It tells the story of four remarkable young men, the stresses, tensions and moral dilemmas of working in situations of extreme violence, pain and suffering, the relationships between the four and the story of the end of apartheid. An immensely powerful, riveting and harrowing book, and an invaluable contribution to the literary genre of war photography. An eye-opening book for readers of Susan Sontag. A group of four young photographers, friends and colleagues, Ken Oosterbroek, Kevin Carter, Greg Marinovich and Joao Silva, who covered the last years of apartheid, taking many of the photographs that encapsulate the final years of white South Africa. Two of them won Pulitzer Prizes for individual photos. During the final, bloody days of South African Apartheid, four young photographers banded together to cover the brutal violence. What lengths will a journalist go to, in order to capture the truth? A gripping story of four remarkable young men--photographers, friends and rivals--who band together for protection in the final, violent days of white rule in South Africa.