The Maddening Truth

Ernest Hemingway complained bitterly that his third wife, Martha Gellhorn, knew “everything about humanity but nothing about human beings”. The question is posed again in this story of Gellhorn’s desperate attempt, in her mid-60’s, to fulfill her lifelong ambition: to write a luminous novel. Famous for her eyewitness accounts of the Spanish Civil war, the devastation at Dachau, and the American bombing of Vietnam, the forgotten, still glamorous journalist has returned to London from exile in Kenya. Goaded on by a smart, younger generation of writers to make good on her promise, she sets out on a painful, errant path that contradicts Hemingway’s assertion and yields an utterly surprising result.

CNN’s Chief International Correspondent Christiane Amanpour joins producers Neal Weisman and Keen Company to host a special benefit performance on Thursday, January 17.