It is March 16th, 1988, and Cotkar, a 15-year-old Kurdish shepherd, watches from the mountains as chemical weapons rain down on his home town of Halabja. His entire family is killed; badly blistered bodies lie in the streets, while survivors spew green vomit until they too succumb to the poisons. In the midst of this apocalypse he develops an unlikely relationship with an Iraqi soldier, Razak, who is searching for his deserter brother. In the years ahead, Malone asserts, both will have to come to terms with the legacy of their inherited pasts if they are to become part of a new, post-Saddam future. A former soldier who served with the UN in northern Iraq, Malone writes with authority and empathy about Iraq, Kurdistan and the devastation wrought by the now infamous attack on Halabja. Published in a year which saw a similar atrocity in Syria, this is a timely reminder of the horrors of war and of the victims it creates.
Valley of the Peacock Angel, by Martin Malone, New Island, £12.99
