Theatre of War was the debut novel from Chilean author Andrea Jeftanovic and the first of her works to be translated into English. Theatre of War is a clever insight into the struggles of one family through poverty, illness, trauma, struggles with the past and the difficulties of memory and more through the eyes of young Tamara.

The novel is also exceedingly clever in structure as it splits between acts to mirror a play and whilst the writing is that of a more traditional novel. The descriptions focus on imagery, on the sounds and the environment to almost construct strong visuals, as if its a play, for the reader.

This at times means there are rather graphic descriptions as Tamara discusses her body bleeding and talks about her ten fingers covered in blood, her body leaking, her attempts to keep the blood inside. However this makes Theatre of War so haunting and compelling.

The book has strong themes that examine memory and how the mind distorts events, alongside trauma, loss, and poverty. Focused on a family who have fled to South America following the trauma of the Balklans war, Theatre of War feels much more abstract in how it handles the themes and concepts as it never explicitly references the specific war.

I absolutely devoured this book and found the whole thing an incredibly immersive read, and I think fans of more abstract books like Han Kang's The Vegetarian will greatly appreciate this one too. Definitely a new favourite of the year, thank you to the publishers for a gifted copy.