Sniper; a novel by Pavel Hak. Editions Tristram, 2002. Trans. 2005 by Gerry Feehily, 121pp $14.00 paperback. ISBN 1-852-42856-2

A review by Eric Solomon

This short (121 small pages) “war novel” needs genre classification. Brief war novels are not anomalies: Tolstoy’s Sebastapol, Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage, March’s Company K are quick examinations of battle’s grim horrors. Pavel Hak follows a pattern of eschewing character development and plot creation to concentrate on terror in the tradition of Holocaust narrative. The unwary reader of Sniper, however, is unprepared for (more…)