Available Formats
Anatomy of a Soldier
By (Author) Harry Parker
Faber & Faber
Faber & Faber
1st April 2016
Main
United Kingdom
General
Fiction
Modern and contemporary fiction: general and literary
823.92
Short-listed for Authors' Club Best First Novel Award 2017
Hardback
320
Width 153mm, Height 234mm, Spine 22mm
478g
Captain Tom Barnes is leading British troops in a war zone. Two boys are growing up there, sharing a prized bicycle and flying kites, before finding themselves separated once the soldiers appear in their countryside. On all sides of this conflict, people are about to be caught up in the violence, from the man who trains one boy to fight the infidel invaders to Barnes's family waiting for him to return home. 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 exploding IED and the medical implements that are subsequently employed. Anatomy of a Soldier is a moving, enlightening and fiercely dramatic novel about one man's journey of survival and the experiences of those around him. Forty-five objects, one unforgettable story.
Harry Parker grew up in Wiltshire. He joined the British Army when he was 23 and served in Iraq in 2007 and Afghanistan in 2009 as a Captain. He is now a writer and artist and lives in London.