The Forgotten Soldier by Guy Sajer: book revi

The Forgotten Soldier: War on the Russian Front – A True Story (1971, this edition 2013) is set in Poland and Russia from September 1942-1945. This is the memoir of 17-year-old German soldier Gefreiter (Guy) Sajer who has a German mother, and French father.

It begins in November 1945, a bitterly cold winter with temperatures at minus 22C in Kharkov (‘during the years 1941, 1942, and 1943 Kharkov was taken by our army, retaken by the Russians, taken back by the Germans, and then finally retaken by the Russians. At this particular moment, our troops were holding it for the first time’). ‘The punishment we suffered, not at the hands of the Russian Army, which until that moment had done almost nothing except retreat, but from the cold, is almost beyond the powers of description.’ He’d aready seen piles of dead bodies. This was before he had to assist at a surgeon amputate another soldier’s leg.

His 12 days of leave in Berlin in 1943 included breaking the news to a mother of a fallen soldier – his friend – as well as a reunion with his father, and a new love, before his return to the war at the Southern Front. But by September ‘we died by the thousands that autumn on the Ukrainian plain.’

He describes hellish conditions – fierce fighting, injuries, diseases, fever, foot conditions, gastric problems, poor sanitation, sleeplessness, vomit, diarrhea, cold, frostbite, hunger, depression, shellshock, anxiety, weakness, deafness, and lice – as he fought in the battles from Kursk to Kharkov.

His memoir finishes with ‘Our Last Battle’ in Pillau and the ‘overflowing’ stream of refugees, and his return home.

This is an honest account of a young man’s excitement at the beginning of an adventure that swiftly turns to fear, tears, and moments of madness. Great book!

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

Comments

Pir-E-Kamil - The Perfect Mentor by Umera Ahmed: book review

The Perfect Mentor pbuh (2011) is set in Lahore and Islamabad in Pakistan. The novel commences with Imama Mubeen in medical university. She wants to be an eye specialist. Her parents have arranged for her to marry her first cousin Asjad. Salar Sikander, her neighbour, is 18 years old with an IQ of 150+ and a photographic memory. He has long hair tied in a ponytail. He imbibes alcohol, treats women disrespectfully and is generally a “weird chap” and a rude, belligerent teenager. In the past three years he has tried to commit suicide three times. He tries again. Imama and her brother, Waseem, answer the servant’s call to help Salar. They stop the bleeding from his wrist and save his life. Imama and Asjad have been engaged for three years, because she wants to finish her studies first. Imama is really delaying her marriage to Asjad because she loves Jalal Ansar. She proposes to him and he says yes. But he knows his parents won’t agree, nor will Imama’s parents. That

Flaws in the Glass, a self-portrait by Patrick White: book review

The manuscript, Flaws in the Glass (1981), is Patrick Victor Martindale White’s autobiography. White, born in 1912 in England, migrated to Sydney, Australia, when he was six months old. For three years, at the age of 20, he studied French and German literature at King’s College at the University of Cambridge in England. Throughout his life, he published 12 novels. In 1957 he won the inaugural Miles Franklin Literary Award for Voss, published in 1956. In 1961, Riders in the Chariot became a best-seller, winning the Miles Franklin Literary Award. In 1973, he was the first Australian author to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for The Eye of the Storm, despite many critics describing his works as ‘un-Australian’ and himself as ‘Australia’s most unreadable novelist.’ In 1979, The Twyborn Affair was short-listed for the Booker Prize, but he withdrew it from the competition to give younger writers the opportunity to win the award. His autobiography, Flaws in the Glass

The Beggars' Strike by Aminata Sow Fall: book review

The Beggar’sStrike (1979 in French and 1981 in English) is set in an unstated country in West Africa in a city known only as The Capital. Undoubtedly, Senegalese author Sow Fall writes of her own experiences. It was also encapsulated in the 2000 film, Battu , directed by Cheick Oumar Sissoko from Mali. Mour Ndiaye is the Director of the Department of Public Health and Hygiene, with the opportunity of a distinguished and coveted promotion to Vice-President of the Republic. Tourism has declined and the government blames the local beggars in The Capital. Ndiaye must rid the streets of beggars, according to a decree from the Minister. Ndiaye instructs his department to carry out weekly raids. One of the raids leads to the death of lame beggar, Madiabel, who ran into an oncoming vehicle as he tried to escape, leaving two wives and eight children. Soon after, another raid resulted in the death of the old well-loved, comic beggar Papa Gorgui Diop. Enough is enou

FEAST OR FAMINE

Search This Blog