Mark Bowden is an author, journalist, screenwriter, and teacher. His book Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War, (The Atlantic Monthly Press, 1999) is an international bestseller, which spent more than a year on The New York Times bestseller list (a month at number one), and was a finalist for the National Book Award. A story of the bloody 1993 battle American soldiers fought in Mogadishu, Somalia, it inspired the acclaimed feature film by director Ridley Scott.