The Yellow Birds

WINNER OF THE GUARDIAN FIRST BOOK AWARD

A soldier's broken promise ... a mother's loss ... an agonizing truth. THE YELLOW BIRDS gives a powerful, emotional insight into the human cost of war - its impact on soldiers, their families, and most of all what it is like to return home, but never be able to leave the memories behind. Kevin Powers served two terms as a machine gunner with the US army in Iraq. On his return, he was asked one question more than any other: "What was it like over there?"

THE YELLOW BIRDS is his attempt to reckon with that question.

Winner of Guardian First Book Award 2012

“Written with an intensity which is deeply compelling.”

Extraordinary . . . beautifully accomplished. The mark of an artist of the first order . . . a must-read book. - JOHN BURNSIDE, GUARDIAN

A masterpiece ... a classic. - THE TIMES, BOOKS OF THE YEAR

A stunning achievement - visceral [and] poignant. - SUNDAY TIMES

'Remarkable for its intensity of both feeling and expression. In this book about death, every line is a defiant assertion of the power of beauty to revivify, whether beauty shows itself in nature or (later) in art. - HILARY MANTEL, GUARDIAN BOOKS OF THE YEAR

The best book I have read this year - IRISH TIMES

A wonderful, powerful novel that moves and terrifies. - INDEPENDENT

Harrowing, inexplicably beautiful, and utterly, urgently necessary. - ANN PATCHETT, Orange Prizewinning author of Bel Canto and State of Wonder

A stunning read . . . beautiful [and] devastating. - SIMON MAYO, BBC RADIO 2 BOOK CLUB

Kevin Powers was born and raised in Richmond, Virginia, graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University, and holds an MFA from the University of Texas at Austin, where he was a Michener Fellow in Poetry. He served in the US Army in 2004 and 2005 in Iraq, where he was deployed as a machine gunner in Mosul and Tal Afar. He currently lives in Florence, where his wife studies fashion.

WINNER OF THE GUARDIAN FIRST BOOK AWARDA soldier's broken promise ... a mother's loss ... an agonizing truth. THE YELLOW BIRDS gives a powerful, emotional insight into the human cost of war - its impact on soldiers, their families, and most of all what it is like to return home, but never be able to leave the memories behind. Kevin Powers served two terms as a machine gunner with the US army in Iraq. On his return, he was asked one question more than any other: "What was it like over there?"THE YELLOW BIRDS is his attempt to reckon with that question.

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