The Watch
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The Watch
Narrated by:
Dustin Rubin, George Newbern, Kaleo Griffith, Kris Koscheski, Reha Zamani, Richard Allen, Zadran Wali
Buy Now for £9.48
'The first great novel of the war in Afghanistan' Wall Street Journal
You’ve had no sleep since the firefight last night.
The morning fog beyond the walls of your base lifts to reveal a lone woman approaching the gate.
She says she has come to claim the body of her brother killed in last night’s attack.
Is she a terrorist? A spy? A lunatic?
Or what she says she is – a grieving sister?
What should you do?
What do you do?
Shortlisted for the Criticos Prize and the Boeke Prize and longlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and the DSC Asian Literature Prize. One of Publishers Weekly's Ten best contemporary war novels.
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Critic reviews
Classical ideas of human dignity and honour are juxtaposed with the squalor of modern war in this important novel... A beautiful and heartfelt lamentation (Eileen Battersby)
His lyrical prose captures superbly the brutal realities of combat (Francesca Angelini)
Scorching, tightly wired... It's a reminder that blood fueds are as old as humanity itself (Claire Alfree)
Written with restrained power (Kate Saunders)
The first great novel of the war in Afghanistan
We watch as the resistance of an isolated American garrison in Afghanistan is ground down, not by force of arms but by the will of a single unarmed woman, holding inflexibly to an idea of what is just and right.
An important book for our times, in which one woman's determination and refusal to consent set an example of courage and honesty.
The Watch is a powerful tale, courageous both in concept and creation: an ancient tale made modern, passed through different narrators in extraordinary shape-shifting prose that makes this not just an important novel, but a remarkable read.
A poignant and important book about one of the defining events of the start of the 21st century; it is devastatingly eloquent and unequivocal about the fact that there is no glory or beauty in war.
A tense, edgy, gripping, important work.
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