We discuss this award-winning author’s latest book and more.
The latest from Richmond author and National Book Award finalist Kevin Powers, A Line in the Sand (Little Brown, May 2023) opens with Arman Bajalan, an Iraqi interpreter, who discovers a body on a Norfolk beach. He narrowly escaped an assassination attempt, and now he fears he’s next.
Powers draws on his own Iraq War experience in this thriller that David Baldacci calls a “kick-ass mystery.” His debut novel, The Yellow Birds, drew praise from Joyce Carol Oats to The Guardian and The New York Times, and won the 2012 Pen/Hemingway Award.
Konstantin Rega: How does your one-year tour in Iraq inform the story?
Kevin Powers: My main goal was to create characters whose stories readers could invest in. But I wanted to remind myself and my fellow citizens of what we owe to our war allies.
What do you want readers to get from this book?
I’ve spent a lot of effort trying to describe one version of the soldier’s experience. Now I wanted to focus on war’s other victims and survivors. The families. The civilians who bear the brunt of warfare’s effects.
I also wanted to highlight the incredible courage of those who can endure and overcome such circumstances. They are far braver than I ever was.
Does Virginia often inspire your writing?
KP: Almost everything I’ve ever written takes place there. Virginia and its history are a perfect microcosm of the country. Our collective virtues and vices began there.
When did you start writing?
When I was thirteen, I found a copy of The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas at The Book Exchange in Midlothian. I tried to write my first poem that day.
But it wasn’t until my time at VCU that considered the idea that others might be interested in my work. I remember a class with Professor Thom Didato that probably changed the entire course of my life.
What’s your favorite thing about being a writer?
I get to daydream and be curious as a profession. And once in a blue moon, someone’ll read something I’ve written, telling me it mattered to them. That’s the best thing.
Get a copy at The Bookshop.
