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An unforgettable depiction of the psychological impact of war, by a young Iraq veteran and poet, The Yellow Birds is already being hailed as a modern classic.
"The war tried to kill us in the spring," begins this breathtaking account of friendship and loss. In Al Tafar, Iraq, twenty-one-year old Private Bartle and eighteen-year-old Private Murphy cling to life as their platoon launches a bloody battle for the city. In the endless days that follow, the two young soldiers do everything to protect each other from the forces that press in on every side: the insurgents, physical fatigue, and the mental stress that comes from constant danger.
Bound together since basic training when their tough-as-nails Sergeant ordered Bartle to watch over Murphy, the two have been dropped into a war neither is prepared for. As reality begins to blur into a hazy nightmare, Murphy becomes increasingly unmoored from the world around him and Bartle takes impossible actions.
With profound emotional insight, especially into the effects of a hidden war on mothers and families at home, THE YELLOW BIRDS is a groundbreaking novel about the costs of war that is destined to become a classic.
About the Author
KEVIN POWERS was born and raised in Richmond, Virginia, graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University, and holds an MFA from the University of Texas at Austin, where he was a Michener Fellow in Poetry. He served in the US Army in 2004 and 2005 in Iraq, where he was deployed as a machine gunner in Mosul and Tal Afar. This is his first novel.
'Remarkable for its intensity of both feeling and expression. In this book about death, every line is a defiant assertion of the power of beauty to revivify, whether beauty shows itself in nature or (later) in art. Graves, Owen and Sassoon would have recognised this war and the strange poetry it has bred.' [HILARY MANTEL, GUARDIAN BOOKS OF THE YEAR]'An extraordinary novel . . . remarkable . . . stands with Tim O'Brien's enduring Vietnam book, The Things They Carried, as a classic of contemporary war fiction . . . brilliantly observed and deeply affecting.' [MICHIKO KAKUTANI, NEW YORK TIMES]'A stunning achievement, visceral [and] poignant.' [SUNDAY TIMES]'A masterpiece ... a classic.' [THE TIMES BOOKS OF THE YEAR]'THE YELLOW BIRDS is a wonderful, powerful novel that moves and terrifies.' [INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY]
ISBN: 9781444756135
ISBN-10: 1444756133
Audience:
General
Format:
Paperback
Language:
English
Number Of Pages: 240
Published: 11th September 2012
Dimensions (cm): 21.6 x 13.5
x 2.0
Weight (kg): 0.24
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