Regeneration
Pat Barker · b. 1943 · England
Why it matters
Shell-shocked officers (including the real poets Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen) confront psychiatry and the war's insanity at a Scottish military hospital. Barker's meticulous, unsentimental reckoning with World War I trauma.
At a glance
war novelhistorical fictionpsychological novel
Difficulty 4/10medium pace256 pagesClear prose, but demands attention to interwoven real historical figures and psychiatric case material.
Deep dive
What it means for a doctor whose job is curing shell-shocked officers well enough to send them back to be killed — and whether treating a war poet's trauma can ever really be separated from silencing his politics.
Where to go next
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