Iraq war veteran Kevin Powers, author of the best-selling war novel The Yellow Birds, will speak at Arcadia University on Wednesday, Oct. 8, at 7 p.m. The event, free and open to the public, will be in the Kuch Center Alumni Gymnasium and will include a book signing.

Powers’ book The Yellow Birds is this year’s selection for the 2014 Summer Reading Program for new students at Arcadia; the book also was this year’s One Book, One Philadelphia selection. The novel chronicles the story of John Bartle, a 21-year-old private in the Army who is serving in Iraq, and his struggles to repair his life once he returns home from the fog of war. Powers served with the U.S. Army in 2004 and 2005 in Mosul and Tal Afar, Iraq, before receiving an honorable discharge.

The Yellow Birds won the Pen/Hemingway Award, the Guardian First Book Award, the Sue Kaufman Prize, the Anisfield-Wolf Award, and was a finalist for the National Book Award, the Young Lions Fiction Award, and the Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize.

The New York Times wrote, “Kevin Powers has something to say, something deeply moving about the frailty of man and the brutality of war, and we should all lean closer and listen.”

Photo by Marjorie Cotera