Description

‘Remarkable’ ANDREW MOTION
‘Revelatory’ CAROL ANN DUFFY
‘Movingly profound’ WILLIAM BOYD

From one of our greatest war correspondents, a unique collection of memories from over 40 years of reporting from conflict zones, set aside war poems from all over the world.

I was standing outside an apartment block that had been split apart by a missile. The words of a poem came to me when I could no longer find my own.

Throughout nearly four decades as a journalist covering conflicts Lindsey Hilsum has always carried a book of poetry. In Ukraine she posted a poem a day and people began to read, to share, to ask for more.

Here, Hilsum collects her favourite poems from ancient times to modern and alongside each she recalls a memory from her own work. Vital, authentic, an anthology like no other, this is the first account Hilsum has written of her own experience, accompanied by the voices of poets through the ages who have fought in wars, witnessed terror or fled their homes, yet found the words to capture their humanity.

‘Lindsey Hilsum has woven poems and war stories together to bring us darkness and light in the most moving, magical way’ CHRISTINA LAMB
‘A book of great power and poignancy’ FERGAL KEANE

Publisher Review

A treasure — Charlotte Higgins * Guardian * Innovative… I Brought the War with Me isn’t just an excellent anthology. It also makes one reflect, not always comfortingly, on news reporters, poets and their relation to the terrible deeds of the world — William Wootten * Times Literary Supplement * I can think of no better use of poetry in any anthology I have ever read: a profound, revelatory, distressing and timely account of humanity at war — CAROL ANN DUFFY As long as there has been war, there have been poets chronicling it; Lindsey Hilsum has woven poems and war stories together to bring us darkness and light in the most moving magical way — CHRISTINA LAMB A fantastic, beguiling and movingly profound book. Memorable and inspiring — WILLIAM BOYD ‘A really good book… [and] very interesting memoir’ — ALASTAIR CAMPBELL A book of great power and poignancy… Lindsey Hilsum has no end of courage, sustained by an intellectual and emotional hinterland that makes her the finest foreign affairs journalist of her generation — FERGAL KEANE Lindsey Hilsum writes beautifully, with so much integrity, sensitivity, true experience and courage, her prose combines with these poems to form a profoundly affecting work. The depth, the sensitivity, the reaching for truth, across cultures, through so many awful wars. It’s all here in this book — LARA PAWSON From Ukraine to Iraq, to Rwanda, Syria, West Bank, and beyond Lindsey Hilsum takes us on a global journey punctuated by wars, death and destruction, but also by verses of poetry– sounds of muses that refused to be silent when the cannons were heard — SERHII PLOKHY Lindsay Hilsum’s unflinching accounts of human conflicts take us to the frontline and witness the painful devastation in Ukraine, Iraq, Rwanda, Syria and many war-torn places beyond recognition. Sharp-eyed, tender yet unsentimental, Hilsum’s prose, juxtaposed with poetry, has created a terrifying dance of death and a soaring dance of hope. It’s an unforgettable reading experience — KIT FAN