A family story of blood and memory and the haunting power of the past. 2018 WINNER OF THE CHRISTOPHER EWART-BIGGS MEMORIAL PRIZE 2017 WINNER OF THE NON-FICTION IRISH BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD A SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER After nearly three decades reporting conflict from all over the world for the BBC, Fergal Keane has gone home to Ireland to tell a story that lies at the root of his fascination with war. It is a family story of war and love, and how the ghosts of the past return to shape the present. Wounds is a powerful memoir about Irish people who found themselves caught up in the revolution that followed the 1916 Rising, and in the pitiless violence of civil war in north Kerry after the British left in 1922. It is the story of Keane's grandmother Hannah Purtill, her brother Mick and his friend Con Brosnan, and how they and their neighbours took up guns to fight the British Empire and create an independent Ireland. And it is the story of another Irishman, Tobias O'Sullivan, who fought against them as a policeman because he believed it was his duty to uphold the law of his country. Many thousands of people took part in the War of Independence and the Civil War that followed. Whatever side they chose, all were changed in some way by the costs of violence.

Keane uses the experiences of his ancestral homeland in north Kerry to examine why people will kill for a cause and how the act of killing reverberates through the generations. Gold title - A veteran foreign correspondent with BBC News, Fergal Keane's dispatches continue to shape the way many viewers understand foreign affairs. - Fergal kept diaries and a huge collection of photographs documenting the extraordinary things he has seen. - Fergal's other personal reportage has been very successful, with his 'Letter to Daniel' (TCM 29k) and 'Letters Home' (TCM 25k) regarded as classics. His most work, 'Road of Bones', sold 26k. - 'Wounds' draws on 30 years of global experience from the frontlines. Fergal Keane's explorations have been as close to home as Northern Ireland and as far as Algeria, Angola, Central African Republic, Rwanda, and the Ukraine. The book answers questions about his family's and Ireland's past whilst offering this history to raise questions about humanity as a whole and the things we are all capable of in the extremes of war.