Death of a Translator: A young reporter’s journey to the heart of

“I have never read anything that so fully and perfectly captured the personal experience and the personal aftermath of war” P. J. O’Rourke

A young, devil-may-care Englishman reporting on the Soviet war makes a fateful commitment to a swashbuckling Afghan guerrilla commander. Not only will he go inside the capital secretly and live in the network of safe houses run by the resistance, he will travel around the city in a Soviet Army jeep, dressed as a Russian officer. Waiting in the mountain camp, from where Niazuldin’s band of fighters lived and planned their hit-and-run attacks on Soviet troops, Ed Gorman discovers what it means to experience combat with men whose only interest is to be killed or martyred.

After that summer in Kabul province the young freelancer became a staff reporter for The Times, covering conflicts in Northern Ireland, the Gulf, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and the Balkans, but Afghanistan never let him go. Death of a Translator is a searingly honest description of a mind haunted and eventually paralysed by the terror of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

“Death of a Translator is a powerful and personal read. Ed Gorman discusses his experiences in an incredibly open and moving way. His story is an example to us all” – Brigadier Ed Butler CBE, DSO

Brought up in the English Midlands, ED GORMAN attended Cambridge University where he read economics and modern history and then set out to make his name in journalism in Soviet-occupied Afghanistan. His adventures there form the core of Death of a Translator, which is published now with a new preface. A 25-year career at The Times followed when Ed worked as a foreign news correspondent covering wars in Afghanistan, the Balkans and Sri Lanka. He was Ireland correspondent for four years during the Troubles, then sailing and Formula One writer and latterly deputy foreign editor and deputy head of news. Married with three stepchildren, he now works from home in West Sussex, dividing his time between writing and his responsibilities as editorial director of a sports management company.