The Watch

The Watch

by JoydeepRoy-Bhattacharya (Author)

Synopsis

Following a desperate night-long battle, a group of beleaguered soldiers in an isolated base in Kandahar are faced with a lone woman demanding the return of her brother's body. Is she a spy, a black widow, a lunatic or what she claims to be: a grieving sister intent on burying her brother according to local rites? As she persists, single-minded in her mission, the camp's tense, claustrophobic atmosphere comes to a boil as the men argue about what to do next. The Watch takes an age-old story - the myth of Antigone - and hurls it into present-day Afghanistan. The result is an unputdownable, deeply affecting book that brilliantly exposes the realities of war. It is also our most powerful expression to date of the nature and futility of this very contemporary conflict.

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More Information

Format: Hardcover
Pages: 336
Publisher: Hogarth
Published: 17 May 2012

ISBN 10: 1781090017
ISBN 13: 9781781090015
Book Overview: A visceral, unforgettable novel about one of the defining events of our age

Media Reviews
the first great novel of the war in Afghanistan Wall Street Journal Sophocles's story of Antigone, who demands her brother's body back after it is decreed that the traitor's corpse be left to rot, is masterfully relocated and updated -- Kamila Shamsie The Guardian This is a rich, unsettling, politically astute novel that will haunt you for a long time after you finish reading it Sydney Morning Herald this is fiction that forces us to react, to feel, perhaps even to change our minds National Post, Canada Classical ideas of human dignity and honour are juxtaposed with the squalor of modern war in this important novel... A beautiful and heartfelt lamentation -- Eileen Battersby Irish Times
Author Bio
Joydeep Roy-Bhattacharya was born in Jamshedpur, India, and studied politics and philosophy at Presidency College and the University of Pennsylvania. He has taught literature and philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania, Bard College, and the University at Albany. His novels The Gabriel Club and The Storyteller of Marrakesh have been published in eleven languages in sixteen countries.