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It is the summer of 1917. Isaac Rosenberg has been on the Western Front for over a year, having barely survived a terrible winter on the Somme. Temporarily attached to the Royal Engineers, he helps load barbed wire on limbers, hauls it by mule train up to the front at night, and repairs damage to barricades in no-man’s-land. Although highly dangerous, Rosenberg views his lot as much improved, and he finds more time to write.

From his upbringing in the slums of Whitechapel, through his youth as misfit, to his futile death in the killing fields of Europe, the author explores the evolution of a writer whose war poetry is now widely acknowledged as among the finest ever written.

Paradoxically, while Rosenberg’s physical and mental health were on the wane, his terrible experiences on the Western Front appeared to boost the power and originality of his work. Throughout the novel, the reader is given insight into the troubled psyche of a poet who, despite living in constant fear and subject to the contempt of his peers, still managed to retain a highly original perspective on mankind’s descent into darkness.

Beating for Light blends fact and fiction in a way that moves beyond the biographical, breathing life into the fears and aspirations of a great artist while, simultaneously, providing a fascinating insight into one of history’s greatest watersheds.

Beating for Light: The Story of Isaac Rosenberg, by Geoff Akers, published by Juniper Books, ISBN 0-9547428-0-X, £9.95. >>