The Searing Portrayal Of War That Has Stunned And Galvanized Generations Of Readers

It was the war to end all wars, the global struggle that would finally make the world safe for democracy—at any cost. But one American soldier has paid a price beyond measure. And within the disfigured flesh that was once a vision of youth lives a spirit that cannot accept what the world has become.

An immediate bestseller upon its original publication in 1939, Dalton Trumbo's stark, profoundly troubling masterpiece about the horrors of World War I brilliantly crystallized the uncompromising brutality of war and became the most influential protest novel of the Vietnam era. With a poignant new foreword by Cindy Sheehan, Johnny Got His Gun—an undisputed classic of antiwar literatureis as timely as ever.

"Powerful. . . an eye-opener." —Michael Moore

"Mr. Trumbo sets this story down almost without pause or punctuation and with a fury amounting to eloquence."—The New York Times

"A book that can never be forgotten by anyone who reads it."—Saturday Review

Dalton Trumbo (December 9, 1905 – September 10, 1976) was among the most prolific and important literary figures of his time. One of the famous Hollywood Ten, he refused to testify about his alleged communist affiliations before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947. Blacklisted from the film industry and charged with contempt of Congress, he served an eleven-month prison sentence. Johnny Got His Gun, the most highly acclaimed work of Trumbo's extraordinary career, won a National Book award (then known as an American Book Sellers Award) in 1939. The idea for the novel came to Trumbo after he learned of a British soldier who was seriously injured during World War I.