'Redeployment' by Phil Klay wins the 2015 W. Y. Boyd Literary Award 'for Excellence in Military Fiction'

For Immediate Release
Tue, 06/02/2015

Contact:

Cheryl Malden

Program Officer

Governance

312-280-3247

cmalden@ala.org

CHICAGO — "Redeployment," by Phil Klay published by Penguin Press, is the winner of the 2015 W. Y. Boyd Literary Award “for Excellence in Military Fiction.”

The W. Y. Boyd Literary Novel Award honors the best fiction set in a period when the United States was at war. The $5,000 award and citation, donated by author W.Y. Boyd II, recognizes the service of American veterans and encourages the writing and publishing of outstanding war-related fiction.

Phil Klay, a Marine veteran, has written a very compelling collection of short stories about the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. The author’s writing takes the reader into the depths of war through the eyes of the soldiers (grunts) who are doing the fighting, the officers and civilian bureaucrats who are in charge of the support of the troops and the reconstruction.  It is a portrait that bares the souls of soldiers as they try and cope with stress of fighting, enduring the IED’s and the snipers, and struggle to deal with the psychical trauma of war.   It also describes what happens when the soldiers return home and try to return to normal life.

His stories cover all aspects of the war from the chaos of the fighting to the work of the mortuary officer after a battle, to a chaplain trying to understand help through religion, to the work of civilian trying to help rebuild Iraq and finding the bureaucracy to be unyielding.

This is a graphic collection of short stories of war that should be required reading for understanding the types of war that American Soldiers are now fighting.

The members of the W. Y. Boyd Jury selected "Redeployment" for this year’s award. The annual award will be presented at the ALA Annual Conference in San Francisco on June 28.

Members of the W. Y. Boyd Literary Award Jury are Robert Schnare, Naval War College, Newport, Rhode Island (retired), Lawrence Clemens, United States Naval Academy, Nimitz Library, Annapolis, Maryland, Maxine Reneker, Monterey, California, Christine Bradley Norwalk (Connecticut) Public Library, Ronald Streensland, Panama City, Florida, and Beth McGuire, Greensburg, Pennsylvania.

More information on the W.Y. Boyd Literary Award including how to apply is available on the ALA website.