A searing, unflinchingly realist novel about life at war, written
during the First World War
*'Men are made to be husbands, fathers - men, in short! Not animals that
hunt one another down'
*
Under Fire follows the fortune of a French battalion during the First
World War. For this group of ordinary men, thrown together from all over
France and longing for home, war is simply a matter of survival, and the
arrival of their rations, a glimpse of a pretty girl or a brief reprieve
in hospital is all they can hope for.
Based directly on Henri Barbusse's experiences of the trenches, Under
Fire is the most famous French novel of the First World War, starkly
evoking the mud, stench and monotony of an eternal battlefield. It is
also a powerful critique of inequality between ranks, the
incomprehension of those who have not experienced battle, and of war
itself.