War and Turpentine

Acclaimed Flemish novelist, poet, and playwright Hertmans won the 2014 AKO Literature Prize for this work, an often poetic account of an author's attempt to reconstruct his grandfather's life based on journals that the grandfather left behind. Covering Urbain Martien's life up to World War I, Part 1 reads more like memoir than fiction, as the author ruminates on his ancestor's early life in Ghent, Belgium, while reflecting upon his own. Some readers will find Part 2 more compelling, as it deals especially with Urbain's experiences as a solder during World War I. Related in the present tense, the narrative is conveyed through its subject's eyes and ends in 1919. In these pages you'll find some of the most graphic accounts of war: "[T]he rumbling of heavy guns…was like the growl of some gargantuan animal…on the horizon, opening its hungry jaws to devour us. We were headed back to hell." Photographs throughout help illustrate the text, and McKay's translation leaves nothing to be desired.