Reading List
The Best Women War Correspondents and Their Books
On D-Day, Martha Gellhorn, refused accreditation because she was a woman, hid in the bathroom of an American hospital ship and crossed the Channel as a stowaway. In August 1939 the 27-year-old Clare Hollingworth saw German tanks massed on the Polish border and gave the Daily Telegraph its front page. In 2001 Marie Colvin lost the sight in one eye to a grenade in Sri Lanka, and kept going back to the front lines until she was killed in Homs in 2012. These eleven women went where the fighting was and wrote down what it did to ordinary people, from the Second World War to Chechnya, Syria and Afghanistan. Each comes with the one book to start with.
By Lisanne Swart · 11 books · Reporting from the front line · Updated October 2026
Quick answer
Start with Martha Gellhorn’s The Face of War for the classic war reporting of the twentieth century, or Marie Colvin’s On the Front Line for a modern reporter at her bravest. The eleven women below covered wars from Poland in 1939 to Syria and Afghanistan; for each there is a short introduction and the book to read first.
The list at a glance
- 01Martha Gellhorn Martha Gellhorn
- 02Clare Hollingworth Clare Hollingworth
- 03Marie Colvin Marie Colvin
- 04Anna Politkovskaya Anna Politkovskaya
- 05Svetlana Alexievich Svetlana Alexievich
- 06Christina Lamb Christina Lamb
- 07Kate Adie Kate Adie
- 08Lindsey Hilsum Lindsey Hilsum
- 09Janine di Giovanni Janine di Giovanni
- 10Lyse Doucet Lyse Doucet
- 11Åsne Seierstad Åsne Seierstad
Eleven women war correspondents, and where to start
Martha Gellhorn
An American reporter who covered the Spanish Civil War, the Second World War for Collier’s, and later Vietnam and the 1989 invasion of Panama. She was briefly married to Ernest Hemingway, and a prize for journalism has carried her name since 1999.
Where to startStart with The Face of War (1959), her collected war reporting. For readers who want to see what war does to civilians, written with anger and precision.
Clare Hollingworth
The Daily Telegraph reporter who broke the news of the German build-up on the Polish border in August 1939, and phoned the British Embassy in Warsaw when the invasion began. She went on to report from North Africa, Algeria, Vietnam and China, and lived to 105.
Where to startStart with Front Line (1990), her memoir. For readers who like a long life told plainly, from the first days of the war onward.
Marie Colvin
An American who reported for The Sunday Times from 1985 until her death. She lost the sight in her left eye in Sri Lanka in 2001, and was killed in the siege of Homs in Syria in February 2012.
Where to startStart with On the Front Line, her collected journalism. For readers who want the stories behind the black eye patch, in her own words.
Anna Politkovskaya
A reporter for Novaya Gazeta who documented abuses on all sides in the Second Chechen War. She was shot dead in the lift of her Moscow apartment building in October 2006; who ordered the killing has never been established.
Where to startStart with A Small Corner of Hell (2003), her dispatches from Chechnya. For readers who want to know what it cost to tell the truth about Putin’s war.
Svetlana Alexievich
A Belarusian journalist who builds books out of hundreds of interviews. She won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2015, and was put on trial in Minsk in the 1990s over her book on Soviet soldiers in Afghanistan.
Where to startStart with The Unwomanly Face of War (1985), the voices of Soviet women who fought in the Second World War. For readers who want the war that never made the official histories.
Christina Lamb
The chief foreign correspondent of The Sunday Times, who has reported from Pakistan and Afghanistan since the 1980s and survived a Taliban ambush in Helmand in 2006. She co-wrote I Am Malala with Malala Yousafzai.
Where to startStart with Our Bodies, Their Battlefield (2020), on what war does to women. Hard to read and important; for readers ready to look at rape as a weapon of war.
Kate Adie
The BBC’s chief news correspondent from 1989 to 2003, who reported from Tiananmen Square, where she was grazed by a bullet, the Gulf War, Bosnia, Rwanda and Sierra Leone.
Where to startStart with The Kindness of Strangers (2002), her autobiography. For readers who grew up watching her and want to know what happened off camera.
Lindsey Hilsum
The International Editor of Channel 4 News. She was in Rwanda when the genocide began in 1994, the only English-speaking foreign reporter there at the time, and has covered Iraq, Libya and Syria since.
Where to startStart with In Extremis (2018), her biography of her friend Marie Colvin. For readers who want to understand what drives a war reporter, and what it costs her.
Janine di Giovanni
An American reporter who has covered Bosnia, Chechnya, Sierra Leone and Syria, and was banned from Russia for her reporting on Chechnya. Her memoir Ghosts by Daylight is about love and trauma after the wars.
Where to startStart with The Morning They Came for Us (2016), her dispatches from Syria. For readers who want the war in Syria through the lives of ordinary people.
Lyse Doucet
The BBC’s chief international correspondent, who first arrived in Kabul in 1988. Her first book won the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction in 2026.
Where to startStart with The Finest Hotel in Kabul (2025), the history of Afghanistan told through the staff and guests of one hotel. For readers who want fifty years of Afghan history through people, not politics.
Åsne Seierstad
A Norwegian reporter who covered Kosovo, Afghanistan, Baghdad before the 2003 invasion and Chechnya. The family of the Kabul bookseller she lived with sued her over the book; an Oslo court ruled against her in 2010, and she won on appeal.
Where to startStart with The Bookseller of Kabul (2002), her portrait of one Afghan family after the fall of the Taliban. For readers curious about family life behind the headlines, and about the ethics of writing it.
Not sure where to start?
If you want the classic war reporting
→ Start with Martha Gellhorn.
If you want a modern reporter at the front line
→ Read Marie Colvin, then Lindsey Hilsum’s book about her.
If you want to know what war does to women
→ Read Christina Lamb or Svetlana Alexievich.
If you want a recent prize-winner
→ Read Lyse Doucet.
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Frequently asked questions about women war correspondents
Who was the most famous female war correspondent?
Martha Gellhorn is usually named first: she reported on wars for nearly sixty years, from Spain in the 1930s to Panama in 1989. Among modern reporters, Marie Colvin is the best known.
Who was the first woman war correspondent of the Second World War?
Clare Hollingworth of the Daily Telegraph broke the news of the German build-up on the Polish border in August 1939, and is often credited with the first scoop of the war.
What book did Marie Colvin write?
Her journalism was collected in On the Front Line. Lindsey Hilsum’s In Extremis (2018) is the biography.
Which war correspondent won the Nobel Prize?
Svetlana Alexievich, a Belarusian journalist, won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2015 for books built from interviews with people who lived through war and disaster.
What is the best book by a female war correspondent?
Martha Gellhorn’s The Face of War is the classic. For recent reporting, Christina Lamb’s Our Bodies, Their Battlefield and Lyse Doucet’s The Finest Hotel in Kabul.
Footnotes
- Clare Hollingworth’s report “1,000 Tanks Massed on Polish Frontier” ran on the front page of the Daily Telegraph in August 1939.
- Svetlana Alexievich received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2015 “for her polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time”.
- Lyse Doucet’s The Finest Hotel in Kabul (Hutchinson Heinemann, September 2025) won the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction in 2026.
From the bookshelf
“Our mission is to report these horrors of war with accuracy and without prejudice.”
— Marie Colvin, St Bride’s Church, London, November 2010
More books I keep coming back to are on my personal bookshelf, and every month one of them goes out to the Night Owl Bookclub.
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I update this list as I read. New picks go to my monthly newsletter first.
