My War Gone By, I Miss It So
'Undoubtedly the most powerful and immediate book to emerge from the Balkan horror of ethnic civil war' Antony Beevor, Daily Telegraph
In 1993, Anthony Loyd hitchhiked to the Balkans hoping to become a journalist. Leaving behind him the legends of a distinguished military family, he wanted to see 'a real war' for himself. In Bosnia he found one.
The cruelty and chaos of the conflict both appalled and embraced him; the adrenaline lure of the action perhaps the loudest siren call of all. In the midst of the daily life-and-death struggle among Bosnia's Serbs, Croats and Muslims, Loyd was inspired by the extraordinary human fortitude he discovered. But returning home he found the void of peacetime too painful to bear, and so began a longstanding personal battle with drug abuse.
Book details
- Format
- Paperback
- ISBN
- 9781912836048
- Published
- 7 May 2019
- Pages
- 352
- Duration
- Dimensions
- 129 x 198 mm
- Genre
- Memoir and Biography
- Imprint
- September
Reviews
'Not since Michael Herr wrote Dispatches has any journalist written so persuasively about violence and its seductions in all of war's minutiae of awful detail... an account that demystifies war and the war reporter and strips them bare before the reader'
'An astonishing book... a raw, vivid and brutally honest account of his transition from thrill seeker to concerned reporter'
'An extraordinary memoir of the Bosnian War... savage and mercilessly readable... deserves a place alongside George Orwell, James Cameron and Nicholas Tomalin. It is as good as war reporting gets. I have nowhere read a more vivid account of frontline fear and survival. Forget the strategic overview. All war is local. It is about the ditch in which the soldier crouches and the ground on which he fights and maybe dies. The same applies to the war reporter. Anthony Loyd has been there and knows it'
'A truly exceptional book, one of those rare moments in journalistic writing when you can sit back and realise that you are in the presence of somebody willing to take the supreme risk for a writer, of extending their inner self. I finished reading Anthony Loyd's account of his time in the Balkans and Chechnya only a few days ago and am still feeling the after-effects ... I read his story of war and addiction (to conflict and heroin) with a sense of gratitude for the honesty and courage on every page'
'Undoubtedly the most powerful and immediate book to emerge from the Balkan horror of ethnic civil war... far more revealing and convincing than anything recounted to camera by visiting journalists and politicians'
'A brutal yet sensitive story which addresses both the nature of addiction and the experience of war. I was struck by Anthony's work and words, experiences, and for me his is an important voice and an important book'
'Chilling... a true picture into the brutality of war and should be required reading for all those politicians who use phrases such as "collateral damage" and "surgical strikes"'
'Both beautiful and disturbing'
'Part war memoir, part coming-of-age tale and part junkie diary, it's a raw account of the hypnotic lures of violence, heroin and danger'
'Battlefield reportage does not get more up close, gruesome, and personal... The fear and confusion of battle are so vivid that in places, they rise like acrid smoke from the page'
'Magnificent... a stench of blood, excrement, mortar-fire, slivovitz and human bestiality emanates from these pages'
