Beating for Light

In October 1915, a little over ninety years ago, Isaac Rosenberg joined the British Army to fight in "the war to end wars." Within months, he was transferred to the Western Front, and, three years later, he was among the numberless dead littering the killing fields of France. Almost a century on, futile wars continue to be waged all over the world, and innocent lives continue to be sacrificed for the "greater good". As Private Rosenberg himself wrote in 1916: Poppies whose roots are in man's veins/drop, and are ever dropping... Beating for Light charts the life of the poet from 1897 to 1918, exploring issues as compelling today as they ever were. The reader is taken on a journey into the troubled psyche of an artist whose war poems are among the finest ever written. Although introverted, vulnerable and infuriatingly stubborn at times, Rosenberg displayed extraordinary courage in his bid to record mankind's descent into darkness. The novel moves beyond the biographical, breathing life into one man's quest for truth.