BDC Conversations: Bill Gentile
In-Person

 

Join photojournalist, Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker and author Bill Gentile as he discusses his memoir, "Wait for Me: True Stories of War, Love and Rock & Roll."

Gentile did more than just "cover" Nicaragua's 1979 Sandinista Revolution and the 1980s Contra War. He lived them. First as a correspondent for United Press International (UPI) and later as a photojournalist for Newsweek magazine, Gentile experienced those historic events from the inside, as the partner of a Nicaraguan woman whose prominent family "adopted" him as one of their own.

 

 

Gentile's memoir takes readers not only to the revolution, the Contra War in the merciless mountains of Nicaragua, and to the deadly streets of El Salvador, but also to the steel mills and backyards of southwestern Pennsylvania where his Italian immigrant community prepared him for those conflicts and then waited for his return. This book introduces the American public to the victims of U.S. intervention abroad. It is a firsthand, frontline account of the human cost of war.

"Wait for Me: True Stories of War, Love and Rock & Roll," explores family, self, love, loss, and love again - told against a backdrop of adversity and warfare. Learn more at waitformebook.com. The Spanish-language version of the book is, "Espérame: Historias Reales de Guerra, Amor y Rock & Roll."

 

 

IMAGES: © SAN JUAN DEL RIO COCO, Nicaragua – Mural of Augusto César Sandino, from whom Sandinistas take their name. Sandino led the struggle against U.S. Marines occupying the country during the 1920s and 30s. This image is taken from my book of photographs, Nicaragua. © Bill Gentile

 

ATLANTIC COAST, Nicaragua – La Bestia and I during a trip to the eastern Atlantic Coast region of the country. I do not know who made this picture. © Bill Gentile