March 2, 2009
Letter from Iraq
“What are you reading?” the captain asked. Not a common question on a military base.
Room in my duffel bag was limited. I took with me a book by the German novelist Daniel Kehlmann whom I was supposed to interview in March and The Forever War by Dexter Filkins.
I was impressed by Filkins’ book, though sometimes it scared the shit out of me, probably because I was reading it in Iraq.
The captain looked at Filkins’ book and said, “You know, the guys who talk about fighting all the time, they haven’t seen anything. The guys who have seen stuff, they’re silent about it. They keep it to themselves.”
I guess that’s why we discussed the future of book publishing until late at night.
Taken from the Words Without Borders blog.
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