Kevin Powers sets fourth novel in the first world war, a century before his Iraq-era debut

Kevin Powers, who served as a machine-gunner in Iraq in 2003–04 and won the 2012 Guardian first book award for The Yellow Birds, has published his fourth novel, Children of the Wild. The book moves from the Iraq war to the first world war, following two young men from a Virginia valley into the trenches of France as officer and private.