A story that involves Fergal Keane’s country, family and momentous historical events following the 1916 Irish uprising. It was a fight against the English overlords and the often violent and cruel forces used to stop the war for independence. It is one of those stories that prompts the thoughts “when will we ever learn” and how Governments can be so out of touch and pig-headed when faced with the inevitable. A history told through the eyes of witnesses and family will always be more “alive” and Wounds is a prime example of this, a humanising account of a conflict that split families and caused untold grief and pain. ~ Sue Baker
After nearly three decades reporting conflict from all over the world for the BBC, Fergal Keane has gone home to Ireland to tell a story that lies at the root of his fascination with war. It is a family story of war and love, and how the ghosts of the past return to shape the present. Wounds is a powerful memoir about Irish people who found themselves caught up in the revolution that followed the 1916 Rising , and in the pitiless violence of civil war in north Kerry after the British left in 1922. It is the story of Keane's grandmother Hanna Purtill, her brother Mick and his friend Con Brosnan, and how they and their neighbours took up guns to fight the British Empire and create an independent Ireland. And it is the story of another Irishman, Tobias O'Sullivan, who fought against them as a policeman because he believed it was his duty to uphold the law of his country. Many thousands of people took part in the War of Independence and the Civil War that followed. Whatever side they chose, all were changed in some way by the costs of violence. Keane uses the experiences of his ancestral homeland in north Kerry to examine why people will kill for a cause and how the act of killing reverberates through the generations.
`His book is a memoir but it is so much more than that...a volume of the most exquisitely written and moving truth and honesty. TLS
A profoundly tragic book by an eminent humanitarian
...Fergal Keane is not a man for triumphalism...he is really writing a passionate elegy for all battles...it is a noble book that Keane has written...its grandeur lies in its essential vision - decent forgiving, pitying and always regretful Jan Morris, The Times
`Fergal Keane operates masterfully...I found myself, on one or two pages towards the close, caught in a choking emotion...the evidence is meticulously gathered and the writing so powerful that it turns a book about a battle into a book about human beings, their existence, their end Guardian
`In his sweeping account of the battle in Kohima in 1944, Fergal Keane does justice to the memory of the men who fell and who survived...a vivid account which brings to life the brutality of that war...an engrossing narrative of ghastly battle Independent
Along with his war correspondent
's feel for action, Keane brings to the task an eye for detail and a gift for describing what it is like to be in a battle at the lowest level...Road of Bones captures this superlatively' Literary Review
Author
About Fergal Keane
Fergal Keane was born in London and educated in Ireland. He is one of the BBC's most distinguished correspondents and an award-winning broadcaster and author. He has reported for the corporation from Northern Ireland, South Africa, Asia and the Balkans. He has been awarded a BAFTA, been named reporter of the year on television and radio, winning honours from the Royal Television Society and the Sony Radio Awards, most recently for his Radio 4 series 'Taking a Stand'. Keane has won the George Orwell prize for literature, the James Cameron Prize and the Edward R. Murrow Award from the US Overseas Press Association. He is the author of a number of bestselling books including 'Letter to Daniel' and his memoir 'All of These People.' He lives in London with his wife and two children.
