Litro #107 War Teaser

107

Steven Appleby Ruth Brandt Kusay Hussein & Sue Reid Sexton Lennart Lundh Gail Newton Nadia Stevenson Richard W. Strachan

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:(/&20( 72 ,668( 2) /,752 )URP WKH (GLWRU War. What is it good for? That was the question asked by Edwin Starr in his seminal 1970 protest song – and by many generations of soldiers and widows for millennia before that ... The answer (if there is one), as anyone who’s studied First World War poetry, read Tolstoy, Remarque or Pat Barker, or come across the short stories of Tim O’Brien, is extraordinary literature.

War takes away homes, freedom and even lives; but the art that arises from conflict is undeniably some of the most powerful and moving ever created, from Picasso’s Guernica to the poems of Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon. Small comfort, perhaps, that appalling situations produce beautiful writing – but just as death is part of life, war is part of human society, and one that we have not yet been able to eliminate. We’re an aggressive species, but we are a reflective and compassionate one too – and in this issue you will find stories that embrace the pity of war as well as its horrors.

Nadia Stevenson’s A War Monologue addresses that most difficult of subjects – a soldier talking about his experiences of killing, while Richard W. Strachan’s subtle story of war games The Wild Geese brilliantly conveys the insidious glamour of battle for young boys, with a sinister twist. In Among The Ruins, Lennart Lundh imagines a post-apocalyptic world in which bare survival is the goal, but somehow love remains. Hassan’s Zoo, by Ruth Brandt, shows a zoo-keeper’s struggle between duty and self-preservation and Gail Newton provides some welcome comic relief in When The War Comes, a tale of a lone survivalist ignoring his life (and his wife) in favour of his blog.

In the light of recent events – perhaps the biggest single battle so far won in the ongoing ‘war on terror’, or at least on Al Qaeda, with the death of Osama bin Laden – this issue is more relevant than ever. War touches us all, wherever we are, and nobody is safe. Most of us will be lucky enough never to have to experience it first-hand, but in The Iron Gates of Freedom – a semi-autobiographical story by Iraqi writer-in-exile Kusay Hussein, cowritten with author Sue Reid Sexton – we have a dispatch from the frontline. Read it and hope.

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This selection is copyright © 2011 Litro Magazine Litro Magazine is published by Ocean Media Books Ltd Litro Magazine is London’s leading short story magazine. Please either keep your copy, pass it on for someone else to enjoy, or recycle it - we like to think of it as a small free book.

www.litro.co.uk

&RQWHQWV Hassanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Zoo Ruth Brandt

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Cartoon: How To Avoid War Steven Appleby

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A War Monologue Nadia Stevenson

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The Wild Geese Richard W. Strachan

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Cartoon: When the Other Gods Read Self Help Books...

Louie Stowell

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Among the Ruins Lennart Lundh

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The Iron Gates of Freedom Kusay Hussein with Sue Reid Sexton

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When the War Comes Gail Newton

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Listings Alex James

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LITRO | 107 WAR “After two hours waiting with the group while the soldiers sat in silence, I began to feel thirsty, and guilty. I didn’t like to stand with my back to the dead soldiers when their blood wasn’t yet dry.”

The Iron Gates of Freedom by Kusay Hussein and Sue Reid Sexton, page 30

Cover Art:

September und Schweigen, Oktober. 2006, Watercolour on paper, 66 x 103cm. 2006 Galerie Wolfgang Gmyrek Düsseldorf.

Part of Summer Exhibition 2011 at the Royal Academy of Arts, London.

ISBN 978-0-9554245-5-7

www.litro.co.uk