translated from the French by Charlotte Mandell – published September 2026
A brutal but compelling read about an unnamed teenage sniper, fighting in an unspecified war in an unnamed country. The young soldier sees himself more as an artist than a blood-thirsty fighter. The precision of his violence makes it a craft: he doesn’t simply kill, he kills beautifully.
This is a harrowing exploration into what happens to the human psyche when continuously exposed to extreme violence. In its initial pages the power of Enard’s writing left a sense of unease, and although that lessens, it never really goes.
Despite being set during a civil war, we are never told the duration of this war, or the reason for it; because that isn’t the point. There are wars like this being fought around the world in several places, so it is very timely.
The book itself focuses more on the main character’s corrosion of their own morality and the blurred lines between what’s a target and what isn’t.
Énard writes with remarkable control. There is lyricism here, but it is cold, observed from a distance.
It is a short but quite memorable book, that doesn’t attempt to explain war, rather in what happens when war becomes commonplace, and killing becomes just a job.
My GoodReads score 5 / 5
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