Books
The winner of the 2014 Straid Award, Beetle is the story of a group of friends caught up in the Bosnian civil war. Continuously weaving the personal and the historical, the collection traces their hopes, fears, love affairs and rivalries through the course of a conflict that forces all involved to make decisions that profoundly affect their lives.
Drawing on the author’s experiences in Bosnia & Herzegovina and Afghanistan, the collection is a moving examination of the choices people make when caught up in conflict, and how wars shape – and are shaped by – those caught up in them.
Beetle is available from Templar Poetry Press, Amazon, or good bookshops.
‘His poems have a powerful subject matter – the terrible aftermath of war. Yet this work is not simply reportage: it is true poetry, which observes mood and action closely… in a sequence of highly intelligent, thoughtful and emotional poems, each of which is able to stand independently of the whole.’
Beatrice Garland, author of ‘The Invention of Fireworks’ (shortlisted for the 2014 Forward Prize for First Collection)
