Friday Classic: Letters from the Coffin Trenches by Ken Catran

“My letters were going to be stirring epistles that you would remember and cherish, but it sounds so stupid now to talk of modern warfare being in any way glorious. To hear some poor devil screaming with pain, or dead bodies, well, you don’t get that from Morte d’Arthur. Knights may fight with chivalry but there is no mention of broken heads and severed limbs or the stench of fresh-spilled blood.” So writes Harry Wainwright to his girl, Jess, about the carnage that was Gallipoli.

This story, told mainly in the letters that pass between Harry and Jess, outlines the slow transformation from the bright-eyed young gallant, eager for glory, to the battle-weary tough soldier who can hardly recognise himself in the mirror.

In this harrowing story Ken Catran manages to convey the horror of the “coffin trenches” without being too graphic. Every Kiwi kid should read this book.


Reviewed by Beth

This book was a finalist in the New Zealand Post Book Awards in 2003

Published by Random House (2002)