Published
October 24th 2024
ISBN
9781911427421
Format
Dimensions
198 mm x 129 mm
Pages
304
'That most precious of war stories: a veteran soldier’s tale from the dust and blood and brilliant greens of Helmand.' ANTHONY LOYD , Times award winning special correspondent
Captain Nick Russell is drawn to Afghanistan by his profession. Ghul Khan, once a Mujahideen warrior, is now a farmer desperate to find peace for his village. Haji Mansur battles for the ideals that gave birth to the Taliban. All three are experienced fighters with strong feelings of loyalty and honour. Their fates collide amid the brutality of war, and they are faced with impossible choices that affect their followers, friends, family and lovers.
An intimate account of the shared experience of war: fear, courage, boredom, exhaustion, the ugliness of death, the brutal sped of events. And always woven into the chaos of the moment, the unexpected, extremes of pain, there’s the human factor, an unaccountable force, driving people together, splitting them apart, creating memories and suffering that can’t be healed.
For readers of The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer; From the City, from the Plough, by Alexander Baron; Rain, by Barney Campbell.
Deft, powerful and deeply moving, as much as an account of men at war, Edward King carries his reader along a bloody road to manhood – marked by milestones of searing grief, complex choices and terrible violence – which British soldier and Taliban fighter alike both trod as they struggled to outwit one another in Helmand’s sands.
– Anthony Loyd, prize-winning Times War Correspondent
The realities of war and the toll on those who fight, on both sides. We’re with soldiers making dry mouthed decisions, who can still look beyond the battlefield to write a love letter to Afghanistan. Brave, remarkable and compelling
– Sarah Sands, Editor of Today BBC radio 4
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