From the Trenches - New Book on Anzac from Mark Dapin

 
For all those interested in the history of Anzac, a new book has come out that tells the story of the Anzac experience from the words of the soldiers and nurses themselves.
As the Publisher Penguin Books says "Others have written the myth, but the Anzacs themselves wrote their stories."
2014 marks the centenary of the beginning of The Great War. The War started on 28 July, 1914 and lasted for four gruelling years. It was also the beginning of the legend of the Anzacs and Australian mateship. Soldiers came from all walks of life including writers and artists. They fought on the battlefield, worked as ambulance drivers and as nurses in the war.
We've heard of the British writers like Siegfried Sassoon who immortalised their experiences of the trenches but what about the Australians and New Zealanders, the ANZACS, who put pen to paper about what were often horrific conditions?
Journalist and novelist Mark Dapin has delved into the writing of this time and has collected diary entries, memoir, poetry, letters and reportage in his book From the Trenches: The Best Anzac Writing of World War One.
This collection reminds us that the Anzac legend is rooted in real and tragic circumstances on a heartbreakingly human scale. Belying the common perception of the laconic digger, these compelling voices convey the range of wartime experience, from the desolation and horror to the unbridled excitement and camaraderie. Through it all runs the bleak toll on young lives.

This volume could well be regarded as the definitive record of the personal experiences that forged the emerging national identities of Australia and New Zealand.
The author Mark Dapin talks about this new book on the ABC's Books and Arts Daily Show. Click here to link to the interview.