One hundred and eight rounds of bullets. Fourteen dead.
Fourteen wounded. Two sides to a story and a four-decade search for the
truth...
Douglas Murray's Orwell Prize longlisted Bloody Sunday: Truth, Lies and the Saville Inquiry (available for a special price of £7.49, RRP £12.99) is now available in paperback, and thus wins the coveted accolade of Biteback's book of the week.
Bloody Sunday was the worst massacre of British citizens by British troops since Peterloo in 1819 – a potent distillation of the rage and anguish of a bitter conflict that spanned decades and claimed three and a half thousand lives.
In 2002, when the Saville Inquiry transferred from Derry to London, author Douglas Murray began attending daily to hear at first hand the testimony of the soldiers and members of the IRA who had been there that dreadful day. What he discovered was a devastating story of ordinary people thrown into the most terrible of situations, a story not only more straightforward than the British army would like to admit, but more complex than the IRA has always claimed.
This book is not solely about a shocking event or a process of justice; it is about the efforts of a group of people to arrive at truth and a country’s attempt – three decades on – at painful and perhaps incomplete reconciliation.
‘Murray has sifted all the evidence, heard a great deal of it being delivered, and has made the whole thing comprehensible … a page turner.’ Simon Hoggart, The Guardian
‘Murray has made himself the chronicler par excellence of the public hearings … for those interested in the actual facts – as well as the political reworkings of the story of Bloody Sunday – this is an indispensable guide.’ Literary Review