War & Conflict

Narratives shaped by conflict, survival, and the human cost of war.

All countries Afghanistan Algeria Armenia Bangladesh Benin Bosnia and Herzegovina Cambodia Canada China Congo, Democratic Republic Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) Croatia Cyprus Ethiopia France Germany Greece Indonesia Iraq Japan Kenya Lebanon Malaysia Mexico Myanmar Netherlands Nigeria North Korea Pakistan Palestine Russia Rwanda Senegal South Korea Sri Lanka Syria Tanzania Türkiye Ukraine United Kingdom United States Vietnam Yemen

Newest first Oldest first

The Remembered Soldier

The Remembered Soldier

In The Remembered Soldier, a young woman named Noon Merckem encounters a man suffering from amnesia who may be her husband, a soldier who disappeared during the First World War. Although he remembers nothing of his former life, Noon attempts to help him recover his identity and rebuild their relationship. As the story unfolds, conflicting memories and unanswered questions emerge, revealing the uncertainty surrounding his past and the devastating consequences of war. Anjet Daanje explores the fragile relationship between memory, identity, and truth, examining how love can endure when the past becomes inaccessible. Set against the aftermath of the First World War, this haunting novel reflects on trauma, loss, and the stories people construct to make sense of their lives.

Netherlands 2025

Icarus 17

Charles Cumming

Max Radinsky believes he has found the perfect life in Athens, Greece, until his girlfriend, Yasmine, is forced to flee the city. Joining her on the run, Max becomes caught in a dangerous international pursuit. Neither is trained for espionage, and as rival intelligence agencies close in, their desperate journey across Greece turns into a fight for survival. Meanwhile, Lachlan Kite, head of the covert intelligence service BOX 88, receives an unexpected plea for help from Martha Raine, a former lover he has not seen in more than twenty years. Her son Max has disappeared, and Kite finds himself drawn back into fieldwork to locate the young couple. What he uncovers is far more dangerous than a missing-person case: Yasmine holds a secret that could destabilise the Middle East for a generation, and Israeli intelligence operatives have orders to kill her on sight. The fourth novel in Cumming’s BOX 88 series, Icarus 17 combines a high-stakes international chase with the personal consequences of a spy’s past. Moving between Greece and the world of covert intelligence, it explores loyalty, betrayal, and the devastating cost of secrets that powerful institutions will do anything to protect.

Greece United Kingdom 2026

Cold Zero

Brad Thor, Ward Larsen

When Hemisphere Airlines Flight 777, one of the world’s most advanced passenger jets, vanishes over the North Pole, its disappearance triggers an international crisis. Sabotaged and forced down onto the frozen Arctic ice, the aircraft leaves its surviving passengers stranded in one of the planet’s most unforgiving environments. But the crash conceals a secret far more dangerous than the disaster itself: a revolutionary military technology capable of shifting the global balance of power. Among the survivors are CIA operative Kasey Sheridan and Brett Sharpe, a former fighter pilot now working as the plane’s first officer. As they struggle to keep the injured alive and escape the freezing wilderness, American, Russian, and Chinese intelligence forces race towards the wreckage. Each government is determined to secure the secret technology, regardless of the human cost. With temperatures falling and enemy forces closing in, Sheridan and Sharpe must navigate a deadly landscape where survival and international security are inseparable. Cold Zero combines Arctic survival suspense with high-stakes espionage, exploring technological warfare, geopolitical rivalry, and the catastrophic consequences of a conflict between nuclear powers.

United States 2026

The Young Will Remember

The Young Will Remember

In the frozen winter of 1950, a plane carrying Chinese American journalist Ellie Chang is shot down over North Korea. Stranded behind enemy lines during the Korean War, Ellie fears she will never see her family again—until a mysterious woman steps forward and claims her as her missing daughter. The woman, who calls herself Emma, has spent years searching for her own child, lost in the aftermath of an earlier war. Although she knows Ellie is not her daughter, she refuses to leave another woman’s child to die. Taken in by Emma and a pastor’s family, Ellie must navigate a dangerous landscape where trust is scarce and survival depends on unlikely alliances. As American bombing intensifies, the group begins a perilous journey south. Along the way, their lives become entwined with the fate of Emma’s missing daughter and the buried traumas of the past. Through these women, Eve J. Chung reveals the human cost of war beyond the battlefield: the families torn apart, the lives forgotten by history, and the extraordinary courage required to protect one another. Moving and deeply compassionate, The Young Will Remember explores motherhood, sacrifice, and the bonds that can form between strangers amid unimaginable suffering.

North Korea South Korea 2026

The Man Who Read Books

The Man Who Read Books

In a city where buildings are reduced to rubble, one bookseller refuses to let his world disappear. During a ceasefire in Gaza, a young French photographer wanders through the city’s narrow streets and encounters Nabil Al Jaber, an elderly bookseller surrounded by stacks of ageing books. When the photographer raises his camera, Nabil asks him to do something unexpected: put it down long enough to hear his story. What follows is a journey through decades of Palestinian history, from the displacement of Nabil’s family in 1948 to imprisonment, political disillusionment, love, and devastating personal loss. Each chapter of his life is illuminated by the books that helped him make sense of it, offering moments of refuge when the world beyond his shop seemed determined to destroy everything he held dear. Through Nabil’s memories, literature becomes more than an escape from suffering. It is a way to preserve the past, protect one’s humanity, and resist being reduced to a photograph or a headline. Rachid Benzine’s moving novel explores the lives behind the images of war, asking what can survive when homes, communities, and loved ones are lost. In Nabil’s small, battered bookshop, stories become an act of defiance—and a reminder that even amid devastation, the human spirit continues to seek meaning.

The Age of Silence

The Age of Silence

Alaa Al-Musalli

In Baghdad, under Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship, Bedria fights to hold her family together as war, political repression, and bitter rivalries threaten to destroy everything she loves. With one son missing in battle and a family fortune fuelling resentment among relatives, she faces struggles that extend far beyond the battlefield. Bound by the silence imposed by political power and cultural expectations, Bedria must navigate a world where women carry enormous burdens while their suffering remains largely unseen. Inspired by real events during the Iran–Iraq War and the Gulf War, The Age of Silence is a moving family saga about the hidden costs of conflict, the sacrifices of motherhood, and the wounds that survive long after the fighting ends. It is a tribute to the women who quietly endure war while fighting to preserve their families, their dignity, and their hope.

Slums of Paradise

Slums of Paradise

In 1970s Sylhet, Bangladesh, eleven-year-old Sumaya grows up sheltered by her family’s wealth, while fifteen-year-old Murshed lives under the shadow of his father’s controversial political loyalties. As the Bangladesh Liberation War tears the country apart, a chance encounter binds their lives together in ways neither could imagine. Four decades later, their children, Hinna and Burhaan, meet at a family gathering. Raised in America, Hinna longs for independence from the traditions governing her future, while Burhaan struggles with the inherited stigma and resentment surrounding his family. Drawn to each other despite the forces working against them, they must confront the secrets, loyalties, and political wounds passed down through generations. Spanning two eras, Slums of Paradise explores how war reshapes families long after the fighting ends, questioning whether love can overcome the weight of history and whether a new generation can escape the mistakes of the past.

Bangladesh 2026

The Bureau of Unknown Fates

The Bureau of Unknown Fates

In the aftermath of the Second World War, the Allies establish the International Tracing Service in Bad Arolsen, Germany, to investigate Nazi crimes and help families discover the fates of millions of missing and displaced people. In 1990, Irène, a young Frenchwoman who has moved to Germany after marrying a German man, begins working at the institution. Meticulous and deeply committed to her work, she gradually becomes absorbed in the stories preserved within its archives. Years later, she is entrusted with returning thousands of personal belongings confiscated from concentration camp prisoners. A cloth doll, a medallion, and an embroidered handkerchief become clues to the identities of their former owners and the families they left behind. As Irène follows these traces across Europe, she uncovers stories of persecution, complicity, survival, and loss, while confronting the troubling silences surrounding Germany’s wartime past. Weaving together individual lives and collective memory, Gaëlle Nohant’s moving historical novel explores the enduring consequences of the Holocaust and the power of remembrance to restore dignity to those history has nearly erased.

Arabesques

Set in Kharkiv, eastern Ukraine, during Russia’s full-scale invasion, Arabesques is a collection of interconnected stories about ordinary people trying to preserve their humanity in extraordinary circumstances. Through intimate snapshots of daily life, Serhiy Zhadan portrays a city transformed by war, where familiar routines have been disrupted by bombardment, loss, and the constant threat of death. The characters navigate weddings, love affairs, funerals, and reunions with loved ones returning from the front. Volunteers deliver humanitarian aid, families struggle to protect elderly relatives, and wounded soldiers attempt to rebuild their lives. Their experiences reveal the fragile connections that sustain communities even as violence reshapes the world around them. Returning to characters and settings from his earlier works, including Mesopotamia and The Orphanage, Zhadan captures both the vulnerability and quiet resilience of Ukrainian society. With understated compassion, he explores grief, solidarity, memory, and the persistence of everyday life amid destruction. Arabesques is a powerful literary portrait of a community determined to endure.

Until the Last Gun Is Silent

Until the Last Gun Is Silent

Matthew F. Delmont

Until the Last Gun Is Silent examines the role of Black Americans in the Vietnam War and the movement to bring the conflict to an end. Historian Matthew F. Delmont traces the experiences of Black servicemen, veterans, activists, and peace protesters who confronted both the violence of war abroad and racial injustice at home. Their stories reveal the contradictions of fighting for democracy overseas while experiencing discrimination within the United States. The book also explores how Black communities challenged official narratives about military service, patriotism, and the purpose of the war. By connecting battlefield experiences with political activism and the struggle for civil rights, Delmont presents a broader account of the forces that helped end American involvement in Vietnam and reshape debates about citizenship, equality, and national responsibility.

United States 2026

Please Live

Lana Estemirova

In this memoir, Lana Estemirova reflects on growing up in Chechnya during the wars between Russia and Chechnya, and on the profound influence of her mother, human rights activist Natalia Estemirova. Through personal memories, family history, and the realities of life under violence and repression, she recounts how conflict shaped her childhood and her understanding of courage, justice, and survival. In 2009, Natalia was abducted and murdered after years of documenting human rights abuses. Her death became a defining rupture in Lana’s life, leaving behind grief as well as a responsibility to preserve her mother’s legacy. Please Live is both an intimate coming-of-age story and a testimony to the human cost of war, political violence, and the struggle to speak the truth.

About this theme

Books: 71
Countries: 43

Countries with this theme

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Congo, Democratic Republic

Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast)