Memoir of a war poet
DOUGLAS, Keith. Alamein to Zem Zem. London: PL Editions Poetry. 1946.
8vo. Original quarter red cloth, spine lettered in gilt; pp. 141, [1], xvi, with frontispiece and two additional colour-plates by the author, and several text illustrations also by the author; slight rubbing at head and foot of spine, ownership inscription to front fly-leaf; slight soiling to front board and pages a little toned but otherwise a good copy.
First edition.
Published two years posthumously, following his death whilst at action in Normandy in 1944 during the Second World War, Alamein to Zem Zem is a miltary memoir primarily written about Keith Douglas' experience as a tank commander during the Second Battle of Al Alamein. Zem Zem is the name of a river valley in which Douglas was wounded. Douglas expressed the desire to read his poetry as an "extrospective" art, rather than a poetry which focussed on interior emotional impression, and subsequently he is regarded as one of the 20th century's most accomplished soldier-poets, as a consequence of his matter of fact, devotedly realistic portrayal of the atrocities of war.
#2120724