Alamein to Zem Zem

Just before the battle of El Alamein in 1942 Keith Douglas - possibly the best soldier-poet of the war - escaped from a safe staff job to rejoin his old regiment in the Western Desert. Alamein to Zem Zem is the record of his experiences as a junior tank officer up to the fall of Tunis. It is the story of fear turning to exhilaration in battle; of the nightmarish human detritus of the aftermath, the surrealist landscape of derelict tanks; of his fellow officers like 'Piccadilly Jim', a dandified CO, Tom, the fixing ex-horse dealer, and Raoul, an impulsive misfit; of bravery and brains bedevilled by chronic incompetence, mechanical and human. But above all, Alamein to Zem Zem is a highly personal narrative - vivid, violent and sometimes funny - in which war becomes the raw material of poetry.