A Powerful View of War and What Comes After
"The Yellow Birds" portrays the inner life of a soldier. Image courtesy Little, BrownAudio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
The Yellow Birds, a new novel from an Iraq War veteran, provides a lyrical and haunting portrayal of war and war’s aftermath. Author Kevin Powers earned a master’s degree from UT’s Michener Center for Writers after he returned from Iraq. He talked with KUT’s Wells Dunbar about writing the novel in response to people who asked him what it was like over there.
I realized ultimately that people weren’t really asking for information. I thought maybe they were asking more what it felt like. So I tried to focus on the emotional aspects of that experience, to show through the eyes of this one narrator his feeling, his interior, life, the sense of confusion and fear and anger, and the way that he has to deal with those things once he comes home.
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