Staff Picks
BroaderBookshelf 2024: War in Fiction
- Megan M.
- Monday, January 15
Collection
Fulfill the "read a book about war" prompt with these titles.
This list is part of the BroaderBookshelf 2024 reading challenge. Find more lists here.
Green on Blue
A Novel
Published in 2015
An Afghani orphan loses everything when his village is attacked by militants and must join a U.S.-funded militia to try to save his injured brother, who fell victim to a marketplace bomb.
Salt Houses
Published in 2017
"From a dazzling new literary voice, a debut novel about a Palestinian family caught between present and past, between displacement and home...On the eve of her daughter Alia's wedding, Salma reads the girl's future in a cup of coffee dregs. She sees an unsettled life for Alia and her children; she also sees travel, and luck. While she chooses to keep her predictions to herself that day, they will all soon come to pass when the family is up rooted in the wake of the Six-Day War of 1967. Salma is forced to leave her home in Nablus; Alia's brother gets pulled into a politically militarized world he can't escape; and Alia and her gentle-spirited husband move to Kuwait City, where they reluctantly build a life with their three children. When Saddam Hussein invades Kuwait in1990, Alia and her family once again lose their home, their land, and their story as they know it, scattering to Beirut, Paris, Boston, and beyond. Soon Alia's children begin families of their own, once again navigating the burdens (and blessings) of assimilation in foreign cities. Lyrical and heartbreaking, Salt Houses is a remarkable debut novel that challenges and humanizes an age-old conflict we might think we understand--one that asks us to confront that most devastating of all truths: you can't go home again"-- Provided by publisher.
The Story of a Brief Marriage
Published in 2016
"Very seldom in a reading life does a novel alter your sense not only of literature but of the world. This extraordinary debut is of that class."--Garth Greenwell, author of What Belongs to You. In the last months of the Sri Lankan Civil War, Dinesh's world has contracted to an evacuee camp, where he measures his days by shells that fall like clockwork. Alienated from language, home, and family, he is brought back to life by an unexpected proposal from an old man in the camp: that he marry his daughter, Ganga. In the hours they spend together, Dinesh and Ganga attempt to awaken to one another, to reclaim their humanity. Anuk Arudpragasam's The Story of a Brief Marriage is a feat of stunning imaginative empathy, a meditation on the bare elements of human existence that give life its pulse and purpose, even in the face of atrocity"-- Provided by publisher.
Red Cavalry
Published in 2014
"The brutalities and dualities of war and religion unflinchingly depicted by this major Russian-Jewish writer War's mess and muddle, the brutality and the inanity of fighting-few have better captured this than Isaac Babel, who was a journalist with the Soviet First Cavalry Army. His unflinching portrayal of the murderous havoc of battle is offset by an unexpected and wry humour: having seen the fighting up close, Babel is able to find the funny side of war while depicting its bloody side-in all its mesmerising and casual violence. The lyricism and bitterness that characterise the thirty-five short stories of Red Cavalry are stunningly reproduced in this new translation by the award-winning Boris Dralyuk"-- provided by publisher.
The Absolutist
Published in 2012
Tristan Sadler, a gay soldier, recalls his time spent fighting in World War I and the intensity of his friendship with Will Bancroft, a soldier who became a conscientious objector and was shot as a traitor.
The Sound of the Hours
Published in 2019
"Trapped in Tuscany as war rages along the Gothic Line, Vittoria Guidi doesn't understand where her allegiances should lie. With her Scots-Italian father or Fascist mother? With Mussolini, or her King? With the life she wants, or is told to live? As Germans occupy the mountains surrounding Barga and American Buffalo soldiers draw near, loyalties are tested and families torn apart. Frank Chapel, a young, black soldier fighting for a country that refuses him the vote, is unlike anyone Vita has ever met before. In the chaos, they find each other - but can their growing love defy prejudice and war?"--Publisher.
American War
Published in 2017
"An audacious and powerful debut novel: a second American Civil War, a devastating plague, and one family caught deep in the middle--a story that asks what might happen if America were to turn its most devastating policies and deadly weapons upon itself. Sarat Chestnut, born in Louisiana, is only six when the Second American Civil War breaks out in 2074. But even she knows that oil is outlawed, that Louisiana is half underwater, and that unmanned drones fill the sky. When her father is killed and her family is forced into Camp Patience for displaced persons, she begins to grow up shaped by her particular time and place. But not everyone at Camp Patience is who they claim to be. Eventually Sarat is befriended by a mysterious functionary, under whose influence she is turned into a deadly instrument of war. The decisions that she makes will have tremendous consequences not just for Sarat but for her family and her country, rippling through generations of strangers and kin alike"-- Provided by publisher.
All the Ruined Men
Stories
Published in 2022
"For readers of Phil Klay, Kevin Powers, and Tim O'Brien: Dramatic, powerful, authentic short stories of soldiers fighting a "forever war," in combat and back home. Combat takes a different toll on each soldier; so does coming home. All the Ruined Men by Bill Glose comprises linked stories that show veterans struggling for normalcy as they grapple with flashbacks, injuries (both physical and psychological), damaged relationships, loss of faith, and loss of memory. Beginning in 2003, All the Ruined Men spans ten years, from the confident beginning of America's "forever war" to the confusion and disillusionment that followed. As a former paratrooper and Gulf War veteran, author Bill Glose is closely bound to these stories. Drawing from his own experiences and military knowledge, Glose presents a cast of complex and sympathetic characters: young men who embraced what seemed like a war of just cause, who trained and fought and lived and died together, and who have returned to families, wives, children, civilian life, and an America that has lost its way. Unforgettable, moving, filled with moments of anguish, doubt, love, hope, and other emotions, All the Ruined Men is a singular debut collection"-- Provided by publisher.
Day of War
Published in 2011
In ancient Israel, at the crossroads of the great trading routes, a man named Benaiah is searching for a fresh start and joins a band of soliders led by a warlord named David. Some are loyal to David, but others are only with him for the promise of captured wealth. Over the course of ten days, from snowy mountain passes to sword-wracked battlefields, Benaiah and his fellow mercenaries must call upon every skill they have to survive and establish the throne for David--if they don't kill each other first.
The Mermaid from Jeju
A Novel
Published in 2020
A talented young deep-sea diver from occupied 1948 Korea's neighboring Jeju Island visits Mt. Halla for her family's annual trading trip before her romance with a mountain youth is upended by family tragedy and political turbulence.
The Room on Rue Amelie
Published in 2018
"For fans of Kristin Hannah's The Nightingale and Martha Hall Kelly's Lilac Girls, this powerful novel of fate, resistance, and family--by the international bestselling author of The Sweetness of Forgetting and When We Meet Again--tells the tale of an American woman, a British RAF pilot, and a young Jewish teenager whose lives intersect in occupied Paris during the tumultuous days of World War II. When newlywed Ruby Henderson Benoit arrives in Paris in 1939 with her French husband Marcel, she imagines strolling arm in arm along the grand boulevards, awash in the golden afternoon light. But war is looming on the horizon, and as France falls to the Nazis, her marriage begins to splinter, too. Charlotte Dacher is eleven when the Germans roll into the French capital, their sinister swastika flags snapping in the breeze. After the Jewish restrictions take effect and Jews are ordered to wear the yellow star, Charlotte can't imagine things getting much worse. But then the mass deportations begin, and her life is ripped forever apart. Thomas Clarke joins the British Royal Air Force to protect his country, but when his beloved mother dies in a German bombing during the waning days of the Blitz, he wonders if he's really making a difference. Then he finds himself in Paris, in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, and he discovers a new reason to keep fighting--and an unexpected road home. When fate brings them together, Ruby, Charlotte, and Thomas must summon the courage to defy the Nazis--and to open their own broken hearts--as they fight to survive. Rich with historical drama and emotional depth, this is an unforgettable story that will stay with you long after the final page is turned"-- Provided by publisher.
A Hard and Heavy Thing
Published in 2016
Contemplating suicide after nearly a decade at war, Levi sits down to write a note to his best friend Nick, explaining why things have to come to this inevitable end. Years earlier, Levi--a sergeant in the army--made a tragic choice that led his team into ambush, leaving three soldiers dead and two badly injured. During the attack, Levi risked death to save a badly burned and disfigured Nick. His actions won him the Silver Star for gallantry, but nothing could alleviate the guilt he carried after that fateful day. He may have saved Nick in Iraq, but when Levi returns home and spirals out of control, it is Nick's turn to play the savior, urging Levi to write. Levi begins to type as a way of bidding farewell, but what remains when he is finished is not a suicide note. It's a love song, a novel in which the beginning is the story's end, the story's end is the real beginning of Levi's life, and the future is as mutable as words on a page.
A Soldier of the Great War
Published in 2005
"For Alessandro Giuliani, the son of a prosperous Roman lawyer, trees shimmer in the sun beneath a sky of perfect blue, and at night the moon is amber as Rome seethes with light. He races horses across country to the sea, climbs in the Alps, and is a student of painting and aesthetics. And he falls in love, deeply and eternally. Then the Great War intervenes. Half a century later, in August of 1964, Alessandro, a white-haired professor, finds himself unexpectedly on the road with an illiterate young factory worker. During a walk over days and nights, the old man tells the story of his life. How he was a soldier, a hero, a prisoner, and a deserter. And how he tragically lost one family, but gained another. Dazzled by the action and envious of the richness and color of the story, the boy realizes that the old man's magnificent tale of love and war is more than just a tale: It is the recapitulation of his life, his reckoning with mortality, and above all, a love song for his family."--BOOK JACKET.
Beasts of No Nation
A Novel
Published in 2005
In this stunning debut novel, Agu, a young boy in an unnamed West African nation, is recruited into a unit of guerrilla fighters as civil war engulfs his country. Haunted by his father's own death at the hands of militants, which he fled just before witnessing, Agu is vulnerable to the dangerous yet paternal nature of his new commander. While the war rages on, Agu becomes increasingly divorced from the life he had known before the conflict started -- a life of school friends, church services, and time with his family still intact. As he vividly recalls these sunnier times, his daily reality spins further downward into inexplicable brutality, primal fear, and loss of selfhood. His relationship with his commander deepens even as it darkens, and his camaraderie with a fellow soldier lends a deceptive sense of normalcy to his experience. In a powerful, strikingly original voice that vividly captures Agu's youth and confusion, Uzodinma Iweala has produced a harrowing, deeply affecting novel. Both a searing take on coming-of-age and a vivid document of the dark face of war, Beasts of No Nation announces the arrival of an extraordinary new writer.
Essex Dogs
Published in 2023
"The New York Times bestselling historian makes his historical fiction debut with an explosive novel set during the Hundred Years' War. July 1346. Ten men land on the beaches of Normandy. They call themselves the Essex Dogs: an unruly platoon of archers and men-at-arms led by a battle-scarred captain whose best days are behind him. The fight for the throne of the largest kingdom in Western Europe has begun. Heading ever deeper into enemy territory toward Crécy, this band of brothers knows they are off to fight a battle that will forge nations, and shape the very fabric of human lives. But first they must survive a bloody war in which rules are abandoned and chivalry itself is slaughtered. Rooted in historical accuracy and told through an unforgettable cast, Essex Dogs delivers the stark reality of medieval war on the ground--and shines a light on the fighters and ordinary people caught in the storm"-- Provided by publisher.
From Here to Eternity
Published in 1998
"An epic about life in the Army at Schofield Barracks in Oahu, Hawaii, in the months preceding the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941"--Amazon.com.
The Daughters of Mars
A Novel
Published in 2013
"From the beloved author of Schindler's List, a magnificent, epic novel of two sisters, both nurses during World War I, that has been hailed as perhaps "the best novel of Keneally's career" (The Spectator)"-- Provided by publisher.
Redeployment
Published in 2014
"Phil Klay's Redeployment takes readers to the frontlines of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, asking us to understand what happened there, and what happened to the soldiers who returned. Interwoven with themes of brutality and faith, guilt and fear, helplessness and survival, the characters in these stories struggle to make meaning out of chaos. In "Redeployment", a soldier who has had to shoot dogs because they were eating human corpses must learn what it is like to return to domestic life in suburbia, surrounded by people "who have no idea where Fallujah is, where three members of your platoon died." In "After Action Report", a Lance Corporal seeks expiation for a killing he didn't commit, in order that his best friend will be unburdened. A Morturary Affairs Marine tells about his experiences collecting remains-of U.S. and Iraqi soldiers both. A chaplain sees his understanding of Christianity, and his ability to provide solace through religion, tested by the actions of a ferocious Colonel. And in the darkly comic "Money as a Weapons System", a young Foreign Service Officer is given the absurd task of helping Iraqis improve their lives by teaching them to play baseball. These stories reveal the intricate combination of monotony, bureaucracy, comradeship and violence that make up a soldier's daily life at war, and the isolation, remorse, and despair that can accompany a soldier's homecoming. Redeployment is poised to become a classic in the tradition of war writing. Across nations and continents, Klay sets in devastating relief the two worlds a soldier inhabits: one of extremes and one of loss. Written with a hard-eyed realism and stunning emotional depth, this work marks Phil Klay as one of the most talented new voices of his generation"-- Provided by publisher.
Babel
Or, the Necessity of Violence
Published in 2022
A Chinese boy orphaned by cholera and raised in Britain is trained to work at Oxford's prestigious Royal Institute of Translation, the world's center for translation and magic through silver-working, where he must choose between competing loyalties.
8 Lives of a Century-old Trickster
A Novel
Published in 2023
"Life near the North Korean border is a zero-sum game, an ongoing battle in which you either win or you lose. This dangerous, shadowed netherworld is home to an unforgettable woman known only as the "trickster." Inspired by the story of Lee's great aunt, one of the oldest women to escape alone from North Korea, 8 Lives of a Century Old Trickster consists of eight dark and spellbinding chapters that follow this remarkable character and her family as they struggle to survive during the most turbulent times of modern Korean history. Mirinae Lee's trickster is a shapeshifter--throughout the course of these interconnected chapters she is a slave, an escape artist, a murderer, a terrorist, a spy, a lover, and a mother--a woman who must often choose the unthinkable to survive war and conquest in Korea. Her story is a beguiling, complex tale of love and survival that will keep you riveted--and speculating--until the very end thanks to Lee's brilliant talent for sleight of hand. A fascinating look at survival, trauma, and family, 8 Lives of a Century-Old Trickster is an incredible literary debut from a bright new talent."-- Publisher's website.
We Come to Our Senses
Stories
Published in 2016
"For readers of Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk and Redeployment, a searing debut exploring the lives of veterans returning to their homes in the South. Lacerating and lyrical, We Come to Our Senses centers on men and women affected by combat directly and tangentially, and the peculiar legacies of war. The story "Evie M." is about a vet turned office clerk whose petty neuroses derail even her suicide; in "We Come to Our Senses," a hip young couple leaves the city for the sticks, trading film festivals for firearms; in "Colleen" a woman redeploys to her Mississippi hometown, and confronts the superior who abused her at war; and in "11/19/98" a couple obsesses over sitcoms and retail catalogs, extracting joy and deeper meaning. The story "Hers" is about the sexual politics of a combat zone" -- Provided by publisher.
Bring out the Dog
Stories
Published in 2018
"In the tradition of Redeployment, a short story collection from a decorated U.S. Navy veteran who served several combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan--a powerful depiction of life on the front lines of today's warfare. A mesmerizing debut collection that reveals what it is like to be a member of an elite special operations team, when so many missions take place behind night vision, ancient credos, and layers of secrecy. Told without a trace of bravado, and with a keen, Barry Hannah-like sense of the absurd, Will Mackin manages to capture the tragedy and heroism, degradation and exultation in the smallest details of war. Switching between settings at home and abroad, these eleven unforgettable stories explore the intense bonds, conflicting emotions, and surprising compassion that make up modern warfare"-- Provided by publisher.
The Rope
A Novel
Published in 2016
"From the best-selling author of Republic of Fear, a gritty, unflinching, haunting novel about Iraqi failure in the wake of the 2003 American war. Told from the perspective of a Shi'ite militiaman whose participation in the execution of Saddam Hussein changes his life in ways he could not anticipate, the novel examines the birth of sectarian politics out of a legacy of betrayal and victimhood. A nameless narrator stumbles upon a corpse on the day of the fall of Saddam Hussein. Swept up in the tumultuous politics of the American occupation, he is taken on a journey that concludes with the discovery of what happened to his father who disappeared in the tyrant's Gulag in 1991. His questions about his father, like those surrounding the mysterious corpse outside his house, were ignored by his mother, and by his uncle, in whose house he was raised. But he is older now, and a fighter in his uncle's Army of the Awaited One, which is leading an insurrection against the occupation. Clues accumulate: a letter surreptitiously delivered to his mother during his father's imprisonment; stories told by his dying grandfather. Not until the last hour before the tyrant's execution, is the narrator given the final piece of the puzzle. It comes from Saddam Hussein himself. It is a story about loyalty and betrayal; victims turned victimizers; secrecy and loss. And about identity--the haste with which it is cobbled together, or undone, always at terrible cost. It is a story that will stay with readers long after they finish the final page"-- Provided by publisher.
The Dog of Tithwal
Published in 2021
"Widely considered a reigning master of the modern short story, Manto vividly conjures life on the streets of Bombay - its prostitutes, pimps, gangsters, artists, writers, and those caught in the fore of the India-Pakistan partition. Deeply opposed to partition, Manto is best known for his portrayals of its violence and absurdities. From an ownerless dog caught in the firing squad at the border of the two countries, to neighbors turned enemy soldiers pausing for tea together in a short cease fire - Manto challenges the edges of geographic, cultural, and social boundaries with an unflinching and satirical gaze, and a powerful humanism. With an introduction by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Vijay Seshadri, this collection illuminates Manto's most vital and universal work, and - half a century later - remains a prescient text illuminating so many of the glaring and silenced conflicts that plague humanity today"-- Provided by publisher.
Matterhorn
A Novel of the Vietnam War
Published in 2010
Intense, powerful, and compelling, Matterhorn is an epic war novel in the tradition of Norman Mailer's The Naked and the Dead and James Jones's The Thin Red Line. It is the timeless story of a young Marine lieutenant, Waino Mellas, and his comrades in Bravo Company, who are dropped into the mountain jungle of Vietnam as boys and forced to fight their way into manhood. Standing in their way are not merely the North Vietnamese but also monsoon rain and mud, leeches and tigers, disease and malnutrition. Almost as daunting, it turns out, are the obstacles they discover between each other: racial tension, competing ambitions, and duplicitous superior officers. But when the company finds itself surrounded and outnumbered by a massive enemy regiment, the Marines are thrust into the raw and all-consuming terror of combat. The experience will change them forever. Written by a highly decorated Marine veteran over the course of thirty years, Matterhorn is a spellbinding and unforgettable novel that brings to life an entire world-both its horrors and its thrills-and seems destined to become a classic of combat literature.
I Shall Be Near to You
A Novel
Published in 2014
"An extraordinary novel about a strong-willed woman who disguises herself as a man in order to fight beside her husband in the Civil War, inspired by a real female soldier's letters home Rosetta doesn't want her new husband Jeremiah to enlist, but he joins up, hoping to make enough money that they'll be able to afford their own farm someday. Though she's always worked by her father's side as the son he never had, now that Rosetta is a wife she's told her place is inside with the other women. But Rosetta decides her true place is with Jeremiah, no matter what that means, and to be with him she cuts off her hair, hems an old pair of his pants, and signs up as a Union soldier. Rosetta trains with the men, prepares herself for war, and deals with the tension between her and Jeremiah as he comes to grips with having a fighting wife. There are many dangers to face, from the constant threat of discovery to intense battles where they fight side by side. With him, she faces the difficult realities of the Civil War, marriage, and staying true to herself. Inspired by true accounts of the more than four hundred women who fought in the Civil War disguised as men, I Shall Be Near To You is a tender love story, an exploration of gender roles and marriage, and a hard examination of war"-- Provided by publisher.
The Militia House
A Novel
Published in 2023
"A spine-tingling and boldly original gothic horror novel. It's 2010, and the recently promoted Corporal Loyette and his unit are finishing up their deployment at a new base in Kajaki, Afghanistan. Their duties here are straightforward-loading and unloading cargo into and out of helicopters-and their days are a mix of boredom and dread. The Brits they're replacing delight in telling them the history of the old barracks just off base, a Soviet-era militia house they claim is haunted, and Loyette and his men don't need much convincing to make a clandestine trip outside the wire to explore it. It's a short, middle-of-the-day adventure, but the men experience a mounting agitation after their visit to the militia house. In the days that follow they try to forget about the strange, unsettling sights and sounds from the house, but things are increasingly . . . not right. Loyette becomes determined to ignore his and his marines' growing unease, convinced that it's just the strain of war playing tricks on them. But something about the militia house will not let them go. Meticulously plotted and viscerally immediate in its telling, The Militia House is a gripping and brilliant exploration of the unceasing horrors of war that's no more easily shaken than the militia house itself"-- Provided by publisher.
The Girl in Green
Published in 2017
"From the author of Norwegian by Night, a novel about two men on a misbegotten quest to save the girl they failed to save decades before 1991. Near Checkpoint Zulu, one hundred miles from the Kuwaiti border, Thomas Benton meets Arwood Hobbes. Benton is a British journalist who reports from war zones in part to avoid his lackluster marriage and a daughter he loves but cannot connect with; Arwood is a midwestern American private who might be an insufferable ignoramus, or might be a genuine lunatic with a death wish--it's hard to tell. Desert Storm is over, peace has been declared, but as they argue about whether it makes sense to cross the nearest border in search of an ice cream, they become embroiled in a horrific attack in which a young local girl in a green dress is killed as they are trying to protect her. The two men walk away into their respective lives. But something has cracked for them both. Twenty-two years later, in another place, in another war, they meet again and are offered an unlikely opportunity to redeem themselves when that same girl in green is found alive and in need of salvation. Or is she?"-- Provided by publisher.
Four Soldiers
A Novel
Published in 2018
Hubert Mingarelli's simple, powerful, and moving stories of men in combat have established him as one of the most exciting new voices in international fiction. In Four Soldiers he tells the story of four young soldiers in 1919, members of the Red Army during the Russian civil war. It is set in the harsh dead of winter, just as the soldiers set up camp in a forest in Galicia near the Romanian front line. Due to a lull in fighting, their days are taken up with the mundane tasks of trying to scratch together what food and comforts they can find, all the time while talking, smoking, and waiting. Waiting specifically for spring to come. Waiting for their battalion to move on. Waiting for the inevitable resumption of violence.
The Mountains Sing
A Novel
Published in 2020
"The multigenerational tale of the Trà̂n family, set against the backdrop of the Vit Nam War. Trà̂n Diu Lan, who was born in 1920, was forced to flee her family farm with her six children during the Land Reform as the Communist government rose in the North. Years later in Hà Ni, her young granddaughter, Hương, comes of age as her parents and uncles head off down the H Chí Minh Trail to fight in a conflict that will tear not just her beloved country but her family apart"-- Provided by publisher.
The Things They Carried
A Work of Fiction
Published in 2009
This work depicts the heroic young men of Alpha Company as they carry the emotional weight of their lives to war in Vietnam in a patchwork account of a modern journey into the heart of darkness. They battle the enemy (or maybe more the idea of the enemy), and occasionally each other. In their relationships we see their isolation and loneliness, their rage and fear. They miss their families, their girlfriends and buddies; they miss the lives they left back home. Yet they find sympathy and kindness for strangers (the old man who leads them unscathed through the mine field, the girl who grieves while she dances), and love for each other, because in Vietnam they are the only family they have.
Anatomy of a Soldier
Published in 2016
"A ... first novel--of patriotism, heroism, and profound humanism--that will ... take its place on the shelf of classics about what it truly means to be at war. Captain Tom Barnes, leading British troops in the war zone. Two boys growing up there sharing a prized bicycle and flying kites before finding themselves estranged once foreign soldiers appear in their countryside. The man who trains one boy to fight the other's father as well as the infidel invaders. The family and friends who radiate out from these lives on all sides of this conflict. These are the people who populate this fiercely dramatic and moving novel. But we see them not as they see themselves, but as all the objects surrounding them do: shoes and boots, a helmet, a trove of dollars, a drone, that bike, weaponry, a bag of fertilizer, a medal, a beer glass, a snowflake, dog tags, an IED -- forty-five different inanimate narrators whose unexpected voices tell the story of this heart-stopping journey. Anatomy of a Soldier gives us a way to clearly see and understand those who fight wars in ways we never have before"-- Provided by publisher.
Fives and Twenty-fives
A Novel
Published in 2014
"It's the rule-- always watch your fives and twenty-fives. When a convoy halts to investigate a possible roadside bomb, stay in the vehicle and scan five meters in every direction. A bomb inside five meters cuts through the armor, killing everyone in the truck. Once clear, get out and sweep twenty-five meters. A bomb inside twenty-five meters kills the dismounted scouts investigating the road ahead. Fives and twenty-fives mark the measure of a marine's life in the road repair platoon. Dispatched to fill potholes on the highways of Iraq, the platoon works to assure safe passage for citizens and military personnel. Their mission lacks the glory of the infantry, but in a war where every pothole contains a hidden bomb, road repair brings its own danger. Lieutenant Donavan leads the platoon, painfully aware of his shortcomings and isolated by his rank. Doc Pleasant, the medic, joined for opportunity, but finds his pride undone as he watches friends die. And there's Kateb, known to the Americans as Dodge, an Iraqi interpreter whose love of American culture-- from hip-hop to the dog-eared copy of Huck Finn he carries-- is matched only by his disdain for what Americans are doing to his country. Returning home, they exchange one set of decisions and repercussions for another, struggling to find a place in a world that no longer knows them. -- Provided by publisher.
The Yellow Birds
A Novel
Published in 2012
In the midst of a bloody battle in the Iraq War, two soldiers, bound together since basic training, do everything to protect each other from both outside enemies and the internal struggles that come from constant danger.
In the Light of What We Know
Published in 2014
"A bold, epic debut novel set during the war and financial crisis that defined the beginning of our century. An investment banker approaching forty, his career collapsing and his marriage unraveling, receives a surprise visitor at his West London town house. Confronting the disheveled figure of a South Asian male carrying a backpack, the banker recognizes a long-lost college friend, a mathematics prodigy who disappeared many years earlier under mysterious circumstances. The friend has resurfaced with a confession of unsettling power. Zia Haider Rahman takes us on a journey of exhilarating scope, ranging over Kabul, London, New York, Islamabad, Oxford, Princeton, and Sylhet, and dealing with love, belonging, finance, cognitive science, and war. Its framework is an age-old story: the friendship of two men and the betrayal of one by the other, both of them desperate in their different ways to climb clear of their wrong beginnings. Set against the breaking of nations and beneath the clouds of economic recession, the novel chronicles the lives of people carrying unshakable legacies of class, culture, and faith as they struggle to tame their futures. In the Light of What We Know is by turns tender, intimate, and panoramic, telescoping the great upheavals of our young century into a first novel of rare ambition and profundity"-- Provided by publisher.
To Die in Spring
A Novel
Published in 2017
"The lunacy of the final months of World War II, as experienced by a young German soldier Distant, silent, often drunk, Walter Urban is a difficult man to have as a father. But his son -- the narrator of this slim, harrowing novel -- is curious about Walter's experiences during World War II, and so makes him a present of a blank notebook in which to write down his memories. Walter dies, however, leaving nothing but the barest skeleton of a story on those pages, leading his son to fill in the gaps himself, rightly or wrongly, with what he can piece together of his father's early life. This, then, is the story of Walter and his dangerously outspoken friend Friedrich Caroli, seventeen-year-old trainee milkers on a dairy farm in northern Germany who are tricked into volunteering for the army during the spring of 1945: the last, and in many ways the worst, months of the war. The men are driven to the point of madness by what they experience, and when Friedrich finally deserts his post, Walter is forced to do the unthinkable. Told in a remarkable impressionistic voice, focusing on the tiny details and moments of grotesque beauty that flower even in the most desperate situations, Ralf Rothmann's To Die in Spring "ushers in the pos -- [G©ơnter] Grass era with enormous power" (Die Zeit)." -- Provided by publisher.
Inheritors
Published in 2020
"From the O. Henry Prize-winning author comes a heartbreakingly beautiful and brutal exploration of lives fragmented by the Pacific side of World War II. Spanning more than 150 years, and set in multiple locations in colonial and postcolonial Asia and theUnited States, Inheritors paints a kaleidoscopic portrait of its characters as they grapple with the legacies of loss, imperialism, and war. Written from myriad perspectives and in a wide range of styles, each of these interconnected stories is designedto speak to the others, contesting assumptions and illuminating the complicated ways we experience, interpret, and pass on our personal and shared histories. A retired doctor, for example, is forced to confront the horrific moral consequences of his wartime actions. An elderly woman subjects herself to an interview, gradually revealing a fifty-year old murder and its shattering aftermath. And in the last days of a doomed war, a prodigal son who enlisted against his parents' wishes survives the American invasion of his island outpost, only to be asked for a sacrifice more daunting than any he imagined. Serizawa's characters walk the line between the devastating realities of war and the banal needs of everyday life as they struggle to reconcile their experiences with the changing world. A breathtaking meditation on suppressed histories and the relationship between history, memory, and storytelling, Inheritors stands in the company of Lisa Ko, Viet Thanhn Nguyen and Min Jin Lee"-- Provided by publisher.
The Good Lieutenant
A Novel
Published in 2016
"A novel about two American lieutenants stationed in Iraq--both a love story and an account of a mission gone terribly wrong--written in reverse"-- Provided by publisher.
The War Nurse
A Novel
Published in 2021
"Superintendent of Nurses Julia Stimson and sixty-five inexperienced young nurses arrive on the front lines of WWI to find chaos. With 1,300 soldiers stuffed into a facility built for 500, providing even the most basic care is challenging-and Julia quickly learns that male doctors see her as a threat to their authority. Based on a true story, The War Nurse follows Julia through WWI in France, while the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic overwhelms medical resources. Julia must confront an unthinkable choice-to challenge her profession and risk her hard-won career, or to let the people she loves die in her arms"-- Provided by publisher.