One-Way Ticket to Vietnam
Catherine Leroy
Atelier EXB
English and French
Softcover
240 pages
165 × 240 mm
2025
ISBN 9782365114448
The first woman to receive the Robert Capa Gold Medal, which recognizes a reporter for their courage and independence, Catherine Leroy was one of the few female photographers to cover the Vietnam War between 1966 and 1968. She was just 21 years old when she flew to Saigon with a one-way ticket, carrying only a Leica camera and a hundred dollars. The young woman quickly befriended American soldiers and shared their daily lives—they belonged to the same generation. For three years, she covered the conflict close to the action. She followed patrols on missions, sharing the soldiers’ rations and makeshift sleeping quarters.
Her tight framing and close proximity to the Marines capture the faces and bodies caught up in the turmoil of gunfire. In the heat and mud of the Vietnamese jungle, Catherine Leroy captures moments of courage, fear, and tension, but also friendship, solidarity, and the distress of young men struck down by the violence of the battlefield. Her lens captures the ferocity of the fighting, the despair of the Vietnamese people, and the devastation on both sides of the conflict. Taken prisoner in Hué by North Vietnamese soldiers during the Tet Offensive, she produced an exceptional report and made the cover of Life magazine. Her photographs were seen around the world.
The only civilian woman to parachute with the US Army, Leroy paved the way for her fellow female war reporters. Her images, published in prestigious international magazines, bear witness to the sharpness of a unique photographic eye: that of one of the very first women to be involved in combat in a predominantly male professional world. Her audacity, curiosity, and keen eye give her photographs extraordinary visual power. This book, which includes Catherine Leroy’s correspondence with her parents from 1966 to 1968, reveals the emergence of a young photojournalist and recounts her journey of discovery: a life combining political, social, and feminist commitment.
(Source: https://exb.fr/en/catalogue/674-catherine-leroy-one-way-ticket-to-vietnam.html)
About the Artist
Born in Sannois, near Paris, on August 27, 1944, Catherine Leroy moved to Saigon to cover the Viêt-nam War as a freelance photographer from 1966 to 1968. In 1972, she co-directed Operation Last Patrol, a documentary film about a group of Vietnam veterans opposed to the war. Catherine Leroy moved to Beirut in 1975, at the start of the civil war in Lebanon, then returned to Vietnam to see the end of the conflict. She was the first woman to receive the Robert Capa Award in 1976 for her coverage of the Lebanese civil war. The following year, she moved to Paris, from where she traveled the world for ten years covering the Middle East, Afghanistan, Libya, and Africa. In 1979, she traveled to Tehran during the Ayatollahs’ revolution in Iran, then to Belfast during the “Troubles” in Northern Ireland. She returned to a reunified and peaceful Vietnam in 1980. Two years later, she documented the aftermath of the massacres of Palestinians in Sabra and Shatila by Christian Phalangists in Lebanon. In 1987, she moved to Los Angeles and produced eclectic subjects on America. She published her book Under Fire: Great Photographers and Writers in Vietnam in 2005. Catherine Leroy died of widespread cancer on July 8, 2006, in Santa Monica.
https://dotationcatherineleroy.org/en
(Source: https://exb.fr/en/authors?name=catherine-leroy&id=436)
About the Publisher
Atelier EXB publishes works that address new forms of photography, contemporary art and sciences.
https://exb.fr
(Source: https://exb.fr/en/content/8-presentation)
