I Hate Martin Amis et al.

It is 1995. Milan Zorec, an aspiring yet rejected novelist, travels from England to Bosnia to join the Serbian forces as a sniper in Sarajevo, in the final months of the longest siege in history. He's determined to find a story that no publisher will be able to damn with the words, 'I feel I've seen this before.' In doing so Milan journeys from innocence into the slow burning grip of darkness. Among his fellow snipers, the lost souls who make up Ratko Mladic's army, Milan gains the ammunition to write his masterpiece – the novel that hasn't been written before. Alternating between London and Sarajevo, I Hate Martin Amis et al is a chilling, blackly humorous novel that will appeal to both lovers of the word and anyone who's fallen short of their ambitions. Peter Barry's stunningly original, award winning debut isn't just about literary failure, though. It's a compelling portrait of the dreamer, and bores down into the very centre of things – why we write, why we read, how we might live in these, the strangest of times.

In the lead-up to the Melbourne Writers Festival Peter Barry talks about his book on Radio National Bookshow