Boston Book Festival 2019

Wars have always been tragic, messy, and complicated to understand; novelists are perhaps uniquely equipped to help readers comprehend not only the scope of war but also its complex personal toll. Tim Murphy’s novel Correspondents spans nearly a century, but focuses largely on the Iraq War after 9/11, as a Boston-born journalist and her Iraqi translator navigate their complicated cultural heritages as they struggle to make sense of a senseless conflict. Ethiopian-born novelist Maaza Mengiste narrates the story of a young servant girl turned soldier during the 1935 Italian invasion that devastated her home country. In a starred review, Publishers Weekly praises The Shadow King’s “evocative, mesmerizing account of the role of women during wartime.” Abbigail Rosewood’s If I Had Two Lives intimately explores the personal legacy of war, as a young woman who spent much of her childhood in a Vietnamese military camp finds echoes of that past in her present-day relationships. Their conversation will be moderated by Catherine Parnell, senior associate editor of Consequence Magazine, which focuses on the culture and consequences of war.