WINNER OF THE GUARDIAN FIRST BOOK AWARD A soldier's broken promise ...a mother's loss ...an agonizing truth. The Yellow Birds gives a powerful, emotional insight into the human cost of war - its impact on soldiers, their families, and most of all what it is like to return home, but never be able to leave the memories behind. Kevin Powers served two terms as a machine gunner with the US army in Iraq. On his return, he was asked one question more than any other: "What was it like over there?" The Yellow Birds is his attempt to reckon with that question. "The Yellow Birds is fiction, but it reads with the visceral power of the best memoir ...a stunning achievement' The Sunday Times 'A wonderful, powerful novel that moves and terrifies' Independent on Sunday 'Brilliantly observed and deeply affecting' The New York Times.