Bestselling author of
“Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War,”
“Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World’s Greatest Outlaw,”
“Worm: The First Digital World War”
and “Guests of The Ayatollah.”
National correspondent for The Atlantic.
Contributing editor forVanity Fair.
Introduction by by Daniel Bowden
edited by Pat Bradford, Marimar McNaughton and paul Pastorini
transcribed by Courtney Houston | photography by Allison Potter
49
WBM
rowing up in
St. Louis, Chicago,
Long Island and the
burbs of Baltimore,
Mark Bowden
watched his father
dress up in a suit
every day to sell concrete,
and he knew
he wanted to do something different.
His first loves were drawing and comic
books. At 10, he wrote a letter to D.C.
Comics asking if he could create a comic
book for them. They sent a letter back
saying, “Absolutely.”
While he never ended up doing that
comic book, he did end up writing for
Loyola University’s school newspaper.
And then the Baltimore Sun. And then the
Philadelphia Inquirer.
Before long, he was buying his weight
in khat (an indigenous plant-based stimulant)
to fly into war-torn Somalia on a
drug smuggler’s plane to get the biggest
story of his life at that point — “Black
Hawk Down.”
He is now a national correspondent for
The Atlantic, as well as a contributing editor
for Vanity Fair and has written several
best-selling works of nonfiction.
Today, he lives in Amish country outside
of Philadelphia, is married with five
children and two grandchildren. He’s a
huge fan of Philadelphia sports teams, premium
television programming and Lyle
Lovett. He loves the beach and the change
of seasons as they fall upon the Northeast.
When he’s not writing, he’s reading,
and he has, in fact, even Googled himself.
— Daniel Bowden
G
author interviews