The 14 best Second World War novels — chosen by William Boyd and Max Hastings
Let's begin with an intriguing thought experiment: the celebrated writers of the First World War contrasted with those of the Second, writes William Boyd. The essential writers of 1914-18 — the Great War — might be judiciously considered as, for instance: Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, Edmund Blunden, Robert Graves, Isaac Rosenberg, Ivor Gurney and Charles Sorley. Whereas the 1939-45 conflict produces names like Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene, Norman Mailer, Joseph Heller, Muriel Spark, Anthony Powell, Elizabeth Bowen, Vasily Grossman and Hans Hellmut Kirst, for example.
The first group contains only poets; the second is all novelists. How can this schism, this paradox between the two art forms be explained? Why was poetry the chosen means of literary expression in the Great War and the
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