Entry tags:
Viscera (on images of war)
I read a haunting novel on the train back and forth from DC: The Book of Jonas by Stephen Dau (his first novel, published in 2012).
It’s about a boy who is “rescued” from a country like Afghanistan and given asylum in the US after his village and family are destroyed by an American military operation. The boy Younis/Jonas tries to build a new life in the US, but is plagued by unresolved trauma/memories of how exactly he survived the devastation. His story intersects with that of a missing American soldier whose mother is trying to find him..
I would absolutely recommend it, but mostly if you have an interest in books about PTSD and dissociation, which it's quite good on.
( lengthy literary musing, but also images and descriptions of battlefield death )
It’s about a boy who is “rescued” from a country like Afghanistan and given asylum in the US after his village and family are destroyed by an American military operation. The boy Younis/Jonas tries to build a new life in the US, but is plagued by unresolved trauma/memories of how exactly he survived the devastation. His story intersects with that of a missing American soldier whose mother is trying to find him..
I would absolutely recommend it, but mostly if you have an interest in books about PTSD and dissociation, which it's quite good on.
( lengthy literary musing, but also images and descriptions of battlefield death )