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Most people, upon hearing gunfire, would run away and hide. Conflict photojournalists have the opposite reaction: they actually look for trouble, and when they find it, get as close as possible and stand up to get the best shot. This thirst for the shot and the seeming nonchalance to the risks entailed earned Greg Marinovich, Joao Silva, Ken Oosterbroek, and Kevin Carter the moniker of the Bang-Bang Club. Oosterbroek was killed in township violence just days before South Africa's historic panracial elections. Carter, whose picture of a Sudanese child apparently being stalked by a vulture won him a Pulitzer Prize, killed himself shortly afterwards. Another of their posse, Gary Bernard, who had held Oosterbroek as he died, also committed suicide.
The Bang-Bang Club is a memoir of a time of rivalry, comradeship, machismo, and exhilaration experienced by a band of young South African photographers as they documented their country's transition to democracy. We forget too easily the political and ethnic violence that wracked South Africa as apartheid died a slow, spasmodic death. Supporters of the ANC and Inkatha fought bloody battles every day. The white security forces were complicit in fomenting and enabling some of the worst violence. All the while, the Bang-Bang Club took pictures. And while they did, they were faced with the moral dilemma of how far they should go in pursuit of an image, and whether there was a point at which they should stop their shooting and try to intervene.
This is a riveting and appalling book. It is simply written--these guys are photographers, not writers--but extremely engaging. They were adrenaline junkies who partied hard and prized the shot above all else. None of them was a hero; these men come across as overweeningly ambitious, egotistical, reckless, and selfish, though also brave and even principled. As South Africans, they were all invested in their country's future, even though, as whites, they were strangers in their own land as they covered the Hostel wars in the black townships. The mixture of the romantic appeal of the war correspondent with honest assessments of their personal failings is part of what makes this account so compelling and so singular among books of its ilk. --J. Riches
From Publishers Weekly
Four white South African photographers (Marinovich, Silva, Kevin Carter and Greg Oosterbroek) decide to chronicle the years of violenceAostensibly "black on black" violence but actually apartheid-sanctioned violence aimed at destabilizing the ANCAthat marked the time from Nelson Mandela's release from prison to the first nonracial elections in their land. Before those years passed, two of them would be dead (one by his own hand), and their lives would be forever changed (" 'I was appalled at what they were doing. I was appalled at what I was doing' "). Heard and seen almost entirely through the voice and eyes of Marinovich, this memoir is about, in the words of Archbishop Tutu, the "remarkably cool, no, even cold-blooded" photographers who negotiated a war zone for journalistic gain and not the war itself. Although compelling, their story suffers from a lack of hard-core introspection. Even if the reader can understand the photographers' almost aloof response to the violence and death around them as they seek out bloodbaths and bodies, their manifest coldness (evidenced by both their words and their photographs) remains undeniably disturbing. For example, in one telling scene, after taking pictures of a young man who was killed and burned, Silva takes his friends to see the scene. While they look at the still-smoldering body, a woman comes out from a house nearby and throws a blanket over the body and looks at them in disgust. And when Marinovich and Oosterbroek are injured in a shoot-out, Oosterbroek fatally, their description of the events only accentuates their dispassionate point of view ("the ethic of getting the picture first, then dealing with the rest later"). B&w photos. Radio satellite tour. (Oct.) Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
This powerful account intertwines the personal and professional lives of four journalists, known as the Bang Bang Club, who helped bring the struggle for the end of apartheid in South Africa and other conflicts into the worldview. Two members of the "club" survived to tell their story here, while the other two tragically died: Greg Oosterbroek was fatally shot while covering a firefight, and Kevin Carter, who won a Pulitzer for his photograph of a vulture stalking a starving child in the Sudan, committed suicide. Since then, many have questioned the ethics of taking such a picture, and Carter's own responses changed over time. In this highly readable account, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Marinovich, who narrates the stories, and Silva, whose voice is represented in the third person, openly discuss this and other topics concerning the morality of journalism. The book's 40 photographs offer stark illustrations of the issues, especially the question of the responsibility of the journalist to intervene in order to help rather than merely to profit. An introduction by Desmond Tutu frames the book, putting it in the context of South African history. Libraries with collections on journalism or South Africa should seriously consider purchasing this engaging work, which raises many important questions.DJudy Solberg, George Washington Univ. Lib., Washington, DC Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Suzanne Daley, former Johannesburg Bureau Chief for The New York Times
Often we are so mesmerized by what a camera sees, that we do not think about the person framing the shot. Here is a fascinating look at how photo-journalism is done and the heavy toll it took on four young men covering South Africa's bloody struggle for freedom. To read this book is to feel the early morning wake up calls, the menace of a crowd getting ready to kill, the shame that can go with taking a prize-wining photograph of human misery. Parts of it will haunt you.
From Booklist
Marinovich won a Pulitzer Prize for his photographs of the bloody Hostel War in South Africa's struggle for democracy. He talks about how he, coauthor Silva, and two of their colleagues took pictures: the excitement of being right there and capturing it on film; the danger and terrible cost (Marinovich was wounded several times; one of his friends died in the crossfire); and afterward, the haunting guilt ("We had trodden on corpses, metaphorically and literally") that drove one of the four to suicide. This is a gripping account of the bloody action. Just as dramatic is the bitter inner conflict of those who risk their lives to bring us the news, their courage and commitment as well as their self-doubt. There are nearly 50 black-and-white photos in a central insert, including the famous prizewinning picture of a vulture stalking a starving child in Sudan. Should the cameraman have taken that picture? It showed the world what was happening. But why didn't he save the child? What do you do to get good pictures? Hazel Rochman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
-Philadelphia City Paper
"The Bang-Bang Club succeeds where other, more self-important histories of the conflict in South Africa have failed."
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