Loyola Alumnus and Visiting Journalist Mark Bowden Delivered 2007 Caulfield Lecture

Mark Bowden, Loyola College in Maryland alumnus and Visiting Journalist in the Department of Communication, delivered the 2007 Caulfield Series Lecture, "Guests of the Ayatollah: The 1979 Iran Hostage Crisis," at 7:30 p.m. on Monday, April 2, 2007, in the Program Room of the Andrew White Student Center on Loyola's Evergreen campus. The event is free and open to the public.

Bowden, an Atlantic Monthly national correspondent, is an author, journalist, screenwriter, teacher, documentary film producer, and occasional commentator for National Public Radio. His book Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War (1999)—an international bestseller that spent more than a year on the New York Times bestseller list—was a finalist for the National Book Award. Bowden also worked on the screenplay for Black Hawk Down, a film adaptation of the book, directed by Ridley Scott. Bowden is also the author of the international bestseller Killing Pabl The Hunt for the World's Greatest Outlaw (2001), which tells the story of the hunt for Colombian cocaine billionaire Pablo Escobar. Killing Pablo won the Overseas Press Club's Cornelius Ryan Award as the best book in 2001, and is currently being adapted for the big screen by Paramount/Dreamworks. He is also the author of Doctor Dealer (1987), Bringing the Heat (1994), Our Finest Day (2002) and Finders Keepers (2002). Scott Rudin has optioned his latest book, Guests of the Ayatollah, for screen.

Bowden contributes regularly to major American magazines. Twice in the last two years he has been a finalist in the National Magazine Awards for articles published in The Atlantic Monthly. He has also written for The New Yorker, Sports Illustrated, Rolling Stone, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and many among other publications, and has lectured at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, Yale University Law School, Georgetown University, the USMA at West Point, CIA headquarters, and the Pentagon. He served as a judge for the 2005 National Book Awards. He is also an adjunct professor at his alma mater, Loyola College of Maryland, where he teaches creative writing and journalism.

Born in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1951, Bowden grew up in Illinois, New York, and Maryland. He graduated from Loyola College of Maryland in 1973 with a B.A. in English Literature. He was a reporter and columnist for The Philadelphia Inquirer for twenty years. He lives in southeastern Pennsylvania.

Credit: text and picture from Guests of the Ayatollah Website.