I've just finished reading Another Bloody Love Letter by Anthony Loyd. Loyd is a well travelled foreign correspondent and this is his second offering following My War Gone By, I Miss it So. This time round he provides us with a taste of life as a reporter in wartime Kosovo, Sierra Leone and Afghanistan.Rather than a commentary on the motives and justifications for each war, the book is more an account of his experiences on the front lines of the worlds most dangerous conflicts. More specifically, it is a quest for the meaning of true human courage, and his ongoing search for personal gratifiction. There is an air of self loathing throughout the narrative and a sense that he regards his job not as one carried out through personal choice but as a duty to his soul. The writing is fluent and colourful and the book moves at a pleasing pace. This is because he tells the story through a combination of individual tragedies, near death experiences, unlikely friendships and journalistic exposes on the machinations of working for war lords.
Loyd impressively conveys the secret 'pleasures' of war, and I found it fascinating to read how he embeds himself in the various groups, in particular the Kosovo Liberation Army and the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan. The section on Kosovo is especially dark and harrowing, and the atrocities of the Serb Army is recounted in vivid and unforgiving detail.
How he managed to emerge unscathed from his numerous encouters is something of a mystery to me, and one wonders whether he has used a little journalistic license in exaggerating certain situations. He appears to be driven by the adrenaline of the war zone, and implies that it is a kind of alternative to heroin, to which he was previously addicted and which lurks ominously in the background throughout. Indeed, he is in his element when navigating minefields with unscrupulous interpreters or dodging RPGs in the mountains of Afghanistan, preferring that to the boredom of London, and the unbearable temptation to relapse into heroin use that comes with it.
Another Bloody Love Letter may not be a politically balanced account of the respective conflicts, but the honesty and flair of this book made it an immensly enjoyable read, and I am looking forward to reading his earlier effort 'My War Gone By', provided I can get my hands on a copy as it does not appear to be stocked by any major store, including Amazon!
2 comments:
Does heroin addiction still play a role in this book? Speaking of harrowing incidents in Kosovo, there was a particularly nasty revelation in the Guardian at the weekend suggesting that Kosovan Albanians had run an organ harvesting ring taking organs from live Serb prisoners before disposing of them.
There is a chapter on his heroin addiction yes, around the time of Kosovo. He appeared to have stopped using during Sierra Leone and Afghanistan, although makes a number of references to the fact that it was just one phonecall away and a constant threat.
He does not paint a good picture of the Serbs although to be fair details some of the KLAs dubious actions involving the torture of captured Serbs. The bitterness in that whole region seems to be unparalleled.
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