The idea for the novel came to Trumbo after he learned of a British soldier who was seriously injured during World War I. 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. Blacklisted from the film industry and charged with contempt of Congress, he served an 11-month prison sentence. One of the famous Hollywood Ten, he refused to testify about his alleged communist affiliations before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947. 'A book that can never be forgotten by anyone who reads it.' - Saturday Reviewĭalton Trumbo (December 9, 1905-September 10, 1976) was among the most prolific and important literary figures of his time.

Trumbo sets this story down almost without pause or punctuation and with a fury amounting to eloquence.' - New York Times 'A terrifying book, of an extraordinary emotional intensity.' - The Washington Post Doctorow, Johnny Got His Gun-an undisputed classic of antiwar literature-as as timely as ever. And within the disfigured flesh that was once a vision of youth lives a spirit that cannot accept what the world has become.Īn 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. But one American soldier has paid a price beyond measure. It was the war to end all wars, the global struggle that would finally make the world safe for democracy-at any cost. The searing portrayal of war that has stunned and galvanized generations of readers

Dalton trumbo's johnny got his gun 2008