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Literary nonfiction. Adrian was deployed two times to Afghanistan, first as an executive officer and then as a captain skirmishing with Taliban forces. Throughout his time overseas, he wrote letters to friends, fellow soldiers, and his family. Showing vulnerability to some and steadfastness to others, these letters form AFGHAN POST and chronicle his identity as it splinters under the strain of modern warfare. This epistolary memoir is a daring look into the mind and experiences of an Afghanistan war veteran. Its form allows readers to explore, along with Adrian, the social, emotional, and physical consequences of mental compartmentalization. As one blurber put it, AFGHAN POST is "the story of a sensitive, intelligent young man as he comes to terms with conflict, privilege, duty, and ultimately himself."
These masterfully crafted stories from writers who have served reflect the entire breadth of human emotion–loss, anger, joy, love, fear, and courage—and the evolving nature of what has become America's "Forever War." From debut writers to experienced contributors whose work has been featured in the New York Times, the Atlantic, and the New Yorker, this exceptional collection promises to be the definitive fictional look at the aftereffects of the Iraq and Afghan Wars and will resonate with the reader long after the final page.
A "debut novel about a young Afghan orphan and the harrowing, intractable nature of war"--Amazon.com.
COLBY AWARD WINNER • “One of the most important books to come out of the Afghanistan war.”—Foreign Policy “A saga of courage and futility, of valor and error and heartbreak.”—Rick Atkinson, author of the Liberation Trilogy and The British Are Coming Of the many battlefields on which U.S. troops and intelligence operatives fought in Afghanistan, one remote corner of the country stands as a microcosm of the American campaign: the Pech and its tributary valleys in Kunar and Nuristan. The area’s rugged, steep terrain and thick forests made it a natural hiding spot for local insurgents and international terrorists alike, and it came to represent both the valor and futility of Amer...
'Expansive, explosive and epic' Marlon James 'A courageous book' New York Times Book Review A BARACK OBAMA BOOK OF THE YEAR 2020 Neither Mason, a US Special Forces medic, nor Lisette, a foreign correspondent, has emerged from America’s long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan unscathed. Yet, for them, war still exerts a terrible draw – the noble calling, the camaraderie, the life-and-death stakes. Where else in the world can such a person go? All roads lead to Colombia, where the US has partnered with the local government to stamp out a vicious civil war and keep the predatory narco gangs at bay. Mason is ready for the good war, and Lisette is more than ready to cover it.
Documents the story of twelve young American soldiers deployed to Iraq in the summer of 2006 who were assigned to guard Saddam Hussein in the months before his execution, a responsibility that raised life-changing questions about their beliefs and Hussein's character.
The turning point of World War II came at Stalingrad. Hitler's soldiers stormed the city in September 1942 in a bid to complete the conquest of Europe. Yet Stalingrad never fell. After months of bitter fighting, 100,000 surviving Germans, huddled in the ruined city, surrendered to Soviet troops. During the battle and shortly after its conclusion, scores of Red Army commanders and soldiers, party officials and workers spoke with a team of historians who visited from Moscow to record their conversations. The tapestry of their voices provides groundbreaking insights into the thoughts and feelings of Soviet citizens during wartime. Legendary sniper Vasily Zaytsev recounted the horrors he witness...
Mona Passage is the story of two neighbors in San Juan, Puerto Rico: Galán Betances, a Cuban emigrant, and Pat McAllister, a young Coast Guard officer. During long evenings spent together talking on their Calle Luna rooftop, a deep friendship develops based on shared traumas and a common desire to heal. When Galán learns that his sister, Gabriela, is going to be committed to a mental health facility in Cuba, he plans her escape to Puerto Rico. Pat, whose Coast Guard cutter patrols the Mona Passage for drug traffickers and migrants, warns Galán that such a journey will be treacherous—perhaps fatal. Aware of the dangers but determined for Gabriela to live a full life, Galán hands over al...
The US military is preparing to withdraw from Iraq but newly minted lieutenant Jack Porter is struggling to accept how it is happening. Day after day, Jack tries to assert his leadership in the sweltering, dreary atmosphere of Ashuriyah. But his world is disrupted by the arrival of veteran sergeant Daniel Chambers, whose aggressive style threatens to undermine the fragile peace that the troops have worked so hard to establish. Pulling readers into the captivating immediacy of a conflict that cans shift from drudgery to devastation at any moment, Youngblood provides a startling new dimension to both the moral complexity of war and its psychological toll.
Twenty-two-year-old Parveen is an Afghan-American anthropology student at UC Berkeley, adrift between the separate pulls of a charismatic professor whose contempt for Western cultural narratives runs deep, Afghan immigrant parents who have never quite found their footing in America's strange orbit, and the illicit secret life of young Afghan Americans trying to live normal lives in America. When she comes upon a best-selling book called Mother Afghanistan, a memoir by humanitarian Gideon Crane that has been turned into a sort of bible for American engagement abroad, she's inspired. Galvanised by the author's experience and bent on following in his footsteps, Parveen travels to a remote village in the land of her birth to join with his charitable foundation. When she arrives, however, Gideon's clinic is not a light in the war-torn darkness but a decrepit, unstaffed tomb, the shadowy remains of the place she'd read about. Bit by bit, the fabrications in Gideon's account are revealed.