Warwick Prize for Writing

[dropcap]O[/dropcap]n Tuesday 10 November, Redeployment by Phil Klay was named winner of the Warwick Prize for Writing. At the event, A F Kennedy commented that is was a ‘scaldingly affecting book’ – something I can’t help but agree with whole-heartedly.

Klay’s collection of short stories absorbs the voices and spirits of dozens of soldiers fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq. It is his writing prowess that grabs the reader’s attention, rather than just the brutal realism of war he writes of so earnestly. The narrative is raw and full of instinctual emotion – fitting, as the theme for this year’s prize was, in fact, instinct.

Klay has changed people’s perceptions of war, battle, soldiers and what people find when they dig deep enough

In America, Redeployment has been compared to Tim O’brien’s responses to the Vietnam War. What’s more, Barack Obama has used the short story collection as a means through which to preach against more aggressive forms of foreign affairs.

Klay has changed people’s perceptions of war, battle, soldiers and what people find when they dig deep enough. It is true art in the sense that, by reading these words, you emerge from the pages with an entirely different perspective on a part of modern life you may have never given much thought to.

What you will find in Redeployment is a transparency that you cannot help but admire. As one of five Warwick students sent to represent the Writing Programme at the event, I was lucky enough to catch a quick chat with Klay before he was whisked off by another reader with burning questions. He was strangely humble, having fought in Afghanistan and Iraq as a marine himself. He professed a need to give a voice to soldiers on both sides of the war that he felt our society lacked.

Haania Amir, another representative, wrote a stunning review of Klay’s book before it won, which you can find on the Warwick Prize for Writing website. Joined by its fellow short-listers Her Birth by Rebecca Goss, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler, Skyfaring by Mark Vanhoenacker, Lila by Marilynne Robinson, and A Man in Love by Karl Ove Knausgaard, Redeployment does what all books should aim to do: change perceptions. ‘Thats the gig’ as A F Kennedy would put it.

Image Credits: (Header: Rwendland/Wikimedia Commons)