Iraq Vet Among Top Young Authors
Iraq war veteran Phil Klay (second from left) is one of five writers under 35 who have been honored by the National Book Foundation in the US as part of a “rising generation†of new authors. The authors were chosen for the 5 Under 35, 2014 list by past National Book Award winners and finalists. Klay, a former US Marine who served as a public affairs officer in Iraq’s Anbar province, has published a collection of short stories, “Redeployment,” set in and around the conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan. He is joined by four other young writers selected for the prestigious honor: Yelena Akhtiorskaya (left), whose novel “Panic in a Suitcase” mirrors her own family’s move from Odessa to Brooklyn, Alex Gilvarry (second from right), whose novel “From the Memoirs of a Non-Enemy Combatant” is a confession narrated from a US prison cell, Mexico City-born Valeria Luiselli (right) and Kirstin Valdez Quade (center), who currently teaches writing at the University of Michigan.
