The Book Festival you can enjoy in the bath. Interviews, Readings and Rambling chat. Journalist James Kidd talks to (not at the same time): Hanya Yanagihara, Gary Younge, Richard Russo, Tom Drury, David Mitchell, Michel Faber, LS Hilton, DBC Pierre, Sloane Crosley, Karen Joy Fowler, Vendela Vida, David Gates, Laura Lippman, Tomas Gonzalez. Amit Chaudhuri. New episode: Amanda Coe.
In part three of my epic conversation with Brian Turner, we begin by discussing how the Soldier Poet bears witness,
----more----and how ideas of complicity distinguish this from other kinds of war writing.
We then moved on to:
what inspired Turner to write about war
the stories being told by Iraqis about the war
the war as perceived by the Generals and soldiers on the ground
Mosul, the media and bearing witness
how the war will be assessed by historians
drones, video games and technology
war films and the reality of film
war, boredom and the intensity of the moment
how poetry investigates the moment
suicide and stress of war
what Turner can and can't talk about
'the war has a tombstone over it'
why the Iraq war has not ended
Turner's own return home
did you suffer any post-traumatic stress
'If you're going to send people off to war, they are going to come back with baggage'
Veterans in need of help
how we treat our veterans reflects the health of our nation