Dean Yates was the ideal warzone correspondent: courageous, compassionate, dedicated. After years of facing the worst, though, including the Bali bombings and the Boxing Day tsunami, one final incident undid him. In July 2007, two of his staff members were brutally gunned down by an American helicopter in Iraq.
What followed was an unravelling of everything Dean thought he knew of himself. His PTSD was compounded by his moral wound - the devastation of what he thought he knew of the world and his own character and beliefs. After years of treatment, including several stints inside a psychiatric facility, Dean has reshaped his view of the true meaning of life. Here, in all its guts and glory, is that journey to a better way of being. Dean has been to the blackest heart of humanity and come out with strength and hope.
Line in the Sand is a memoir that is going to resonate for generations to come. It tackles the most important topic of our age in an unforgettable way.
Praise for Line in the Sand
'Brave and vital' Hugh Riminton
'Destined to become a classic' Chris Hedges, Pulitzer-prize winning war correspondent for the New York Times
'A clarion call for a new approach to preventing and treating trauma' Matthew Green, author of Aftershock
'Put on your seatbelt before reading this. Dean Yates has produced the roughest, and most honest, journalistic memoir of war I've ever encountered' Thomas Ricks, author of the international bestseller Fiasco
'Too moving for words' Nancy Sherman, New York Times notable author
'This should be a textbook for everyone working in mental health, and an inspiring read for anyone who cares about taking light into the darkness' Steve Biddulph
Dean Yates is a workplace mental health expert, public speaker, podcast host, and journalist. He is an outspoken advocate on mental health, press freedom and government accountability.
Dean worked for 26 years at Reuters, the international news agency. He was bureau chief in Iraq, responsible for 100 people, and later head of mental health strategy from 2017-2020.
Dean lives in Evandale in Tasmania with his life partner Mary Binks and their three adult children Patrick, Belle and Harry. A journalist searches for meaning and wholeness after being shattered by trauma, taking readers with him on a life-changing journey.
