Soldier wins blog book prize for Iraq memoir

Reuters via Cnet ^ | May 14, 2007 | Staff

[Sleeping Beauty]

Colby Buzzell, whose online diary from the Sunni triangle frontline evolved into the book My War, awarded Blooker prize.

An American soldier's violent and darkly comic account of fighting in Iraq has won the "Blooker prize" for best book that began as a blog on the Internet.

Colby Buzzell, whose Internet diary became the book My War, started posting online from a Sunni triangle frontline Internet tent as a way to "kill time." The book won the second annual $10,000 prize sponsored by publishing Web site Lulu.com.

His blog allowed him to explain the war to readers back home with an immediacy he couldn't have matched in a "regular" book written after he returned, he said by phone from Los Angeles.

"I would come back after missions, my ears still ringing from the firefight, and sit down and write about it," he said. "I've been back two years. If someone told me to write a book about Iraq now, I wouldn't know where to start."

While he was still in Iraq, the military, citing security, ordered Buzzell to stop posting his notes on the Web.

"A soldier writing on a blog for the whole world to read made them extremely nervous. This was the first war where the Internet was such a part of it, and they were nervous about that," he said of his commanders who ordered him off line.

But he said other soldiers are still posting on the Web.

"The more blogs and the more books and the more writing that comes out of the war, the more understanding there will be. People here are oblivious to what our soldiers are going through every day."

Buzzell is not always a sympathetic character.

"One thing I've noticed about me since I've been here is that I've developed that really disturbed, warped, sick war humor about everything," he writes in one blog entry.

"Like a week ago I was flipping through the photos on Spc. Martinez's digital camera, and when I came across the photo of the dead guy they killed in the mosque, without even thinking about it, I busted up laughing, because the guy's eyes were open, and how is tongue was sticking out and his mouth was all agape, it just looked comical to me."

He was inspired in part by Kurt Vonnegut, the author who survived the fire-bombing of Dresden during World War Two.

Now on News.com Report: Microsoft says open source violates 235 patents Most hated blogger on the planet? Photos: Engineering lessons learned from Katrina Extra: Online radio remixes the future of music Vonnegut, who died last month, called Buzzell's book "nothing less than the soul of an extremely interesting human being at war on our behalf in Iraq". He sent Buzzell a postcard "from one veteran and writer to another," which Buzzell keeps.

"I read Slaughterhouse Five when I was over there in Iraq," Buzzell said of Vonnegut's classic wartime satire. "The guy's a genius. The way he deals with situations of dark humor and wit. He was a huge inspiration."

But Buzzell says the best praise he gets comes from soldiers still serving in the field.

"The only opinion I care about are e-mails from the guys," he said. "That's the highest praise possible (when) writing a war memoir: by someone who's been there."

[SE Mom]

This looks like a must-read!

[angkor]

I ran into Buzzell’s blog during its brief lifetime and before the book deal. It was really gripping stuff, the guy definitely has a unique voice. I haven’t read the book yet.

Anyway, the blog is still up, here:

http://cbftw.blogspot.com/

For the last year or two it’s mainly promo stuff for the book. But if you use the Archive menu on the right, and click on June 2004, you can get to the original material.

[hsalaw]

I read the book. I bought it one morning, and read it all the way through by the afternoon. I couldn’t put it down. I highly recommend it.

[SE Mom]

Thanks - I think I’ll pick it up this week.

[freema]

Reading list ping? ; )

Thanks, SEMom and hsalaw!