Author of "Black Hawk Down"

April 19, 1999

NetCafeLive presents journalist Mark Bowden, author of "Black Hawk Down - A Story of Modern War." Bowden discusses his vivid account of the 1993 firefight in Mogadishu, Somalia, the aftermath and consequences of the US-Somali battle, and his harrowing trip to the Somali capital.

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LilyCCC: Welcome to NetCafeLive, where we host authors and celebrities throughout the month. Thanks for joining us! Borders NetCafeLive is a joint production of Borders.com (tm) and Talk City (tm), a Talk City, Inc. Production. Tonight's guest is Mark Bowden, here to talk about his book, "Black Hawk Down - A Story of Modern War." A riveting, close-up account of a 1993 firefight in Mogadishu, Somalia, "Black Hawk Down" is one of the most vivid thorough reports of modern combat ever written. LilyCCC: It was recently seen on television. Borders.com and TalkCity.com are pleased to welcome tonight's guest, Mark Bowden. Welcome to Talk City! Mark, can you start off by telling us about your background and how you came to write "Black Hawk Down?"

Mark Bowden: I've been a newspaper reporter since 1973 when I graduated from Loyola College in Baltimore. I've worked at the Philadelphia Inquire since 1979, and I've written two other books. This is my third. I was struck by the drama of this episode enough that I started to research it.

LilyCCC: Your book is a vivid account of the 1993 firefight in Mogadishu, Somalia. What type of research did you have to do to write "Black Hawk Down" and how long did the writing take?

Mark Bowden: The primary research for "Black Hawk Down" consisted of extensive interviews with scores of soldiers who were involved in the fight - primarily American soldiers, but also Somalis who fought with the Americans that day. So the challenge for me was to find the American soldiers, and then to figure out how to safely travel to Mogadishu and find the gunmen who fought against the Americans that day. The writing took me about ten months. I should say that's the primary writing, then I continued to work on the manuscript for months after that, so the total was a year to a year and a half of writing.

LilyCCC: Mark, your accounts of the battle come from accounts of men who fought on both sides. What was it like for them to have to relive those events?

Mark Bowden: It was very difficult and traumatic for most of the men to describe what they had been through in the kind of detail that I wanted. Very few of the men had ever had an opportunity to talk at length about their experiences that day. The army never studied the episode, and it's not the sort of thing that can be easily discussed with family members and friends, or even amongst the soldiers themselves. The soldiers that I spoke with said that, in speaking with others who weren't there, their actions come across as bragging. This was not the sort of experience that they felt like bragging about, so they didn't sit around and talk about it in detail. It was cathartic to them to be able to express their feelings. Some cried, some became angry, but I believe it moved them all in different ways.

MysteryGirl: What did you think about the movie? Would you have done anything different?

Mark Bowden: Do you mean the TV show, MysteryGirl? It is a documentary film that I co-wrote and which was developed by my colleagues at the Philadelphia Inquirer. It was intended as a kind of complementary piece to the book, in that it deals more with the history and policies that led up to the battle of October 3 than it does with the details of the battle itself. My preference would have been to focus the documentary on the actual events, but I was overruled in the early stages of development, and I'm not at all unhappy with the way it turned out.

MysteryGirl: Will this book be a movie? Any thoughts on who will be cast in the movie?

Mark Bowden: It WILL be a movie! The rights to "Black Hawk Down" have been purchased by Jerry Bruckheimer and it is to be directed by Simon West. I have written a first draft of a screenplay adaptation of the book, and the script is now in the hands of another screenwriter. When he is finished with it, I will see it again. We hope to have the picture in production by the end of this year, which means it could be released some time next year. The casting hasn't been finalized yet. But in my conversations with Jerry Bruckheimer, he thinks it would be great for an ensemble of some of the hottest young male stars in Hollywood. I don't know who they will ultimately be. So far they haven't asked me to be in it!

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