Somewhere in a Desert

A remarkable French 1st novel about war, pain and suffering, written in a beautiful, spare prose. Set in the aftermath of the Gulf War, Dominique Sigaud's 1st novel tells the story of an American soldier, a casualty of war, through a series of linked episodes that all turn out to centre around him, seeing the war through his eyes, and those around him,Iraqi and American, men and women. Written in a striking, spare prose, reminiscent of Duras in French or Hemingway in English, it is a novel of Great, but quiet, ambition, remarkable in it's avoidance of the cold tricksiness of so much contemporary French fiction, and it's preparedness to grapple with the big themes of life, love and death.