For Rouenna
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From the National Book Award-winning author of The Friend, one of the most celebrated novelists of her generation, the story of a woman's experiences of war and an unusual friendship
'Resonant and provocative' VOGUE
'One of my favourite authors' NATALIE PORTMAN
I did not remember a Rouenna Zycinski. I was sure I had never known her. But many years ago, according to her letter, we had been neighbors in the same public housing project, on Staten Island.
A writer receives a letter from an old acquaintance, recalling their shared childhood and asking if they can meet. Though fascinated by the stories Rouenna tells about her life as a combat nurse in Vietnam, the narrator flatly declines her request that they collaborate on a memoir. It is only later, in the aftermath of Rouenna's shocking death, that the narrator is drawn to write about her friend - and her friend's war. Writing Rouenna's story becomes all-consuming: at once a necessity and the only consolation.
'For Rouenna is about everything: war and remembrance, how we invent our "selves" and why; why we kill ourselves - or live. I was dazzled by this book' WASHINGTON POST
'Beautifully written . . . mesmerizing . . . enthralling' O, THE OPRAH MAGAZINE
'An entirely different kind of war novel . . . What emerges is something that feels like truth' SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
'Resonant and provocative' VOGUE
'One of my favourite authors' NATALIE PORTMAN
I did not remember a Rouenna Zycinski. I was sure I had never known her. But many years ago, according to her letter, we had been neighbors in the same public housing project, on Staten Island.
A writer receives a letter from an old acquaintance, recalling their shared childhood and asking if they can meet. Though fascinated by the stories Rouenna tells about her life as a combat nurse in Vietnam, the narrator flatly declines her request that they collaborate on a memoir. It is only later, in the aftermath of Rouenna's shocking death, that the narrator is drawn to write about her friend - and her friend's war. Writing Rouenna's story becomes all-consuming: at once a necessity and the only consolation.
'For Rouenna is about everything: war and remembrance, how we invent our "selves" and why; why we kill ourselves - or live. I was dazzled by this book' WASHINGTON POST
'Beautifully written . . . mesmerizing . . . enthralling' O, THE OPRAH MAGAZINE
'An entirely different kind of war novel . . . What emerges is something that feels like truth' SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
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- Published: Jul 14 2026
- Pages: 240
- 196 x 126mm
- ISBN: 9780349021928
Press Reviews
- Washington Post
For Rouenna is about everything: war and remembrance, how we invent our 'selves' and why; why we kill ourselves-or live. I was dazzled by this book
- New York Daily News
Nunez fashions the Vietnam novel we didn't know we were missing
- O, the Oprah Magazine
Beautifully written ... mesmerizing ... enthralling
- Village Voice
Her spare voice ... gives even the simplest descriptions of place and weather unsettling force and beauty
- San Francsico Chronicle
An entirely different kind of war novel...Nunez's Vietnam is assembled with a long lens and crafted in her spare, gorgeous prose....What emerges is something that feels like truth
- Vogue
Resonant and provocative
- Women's Review of Books
One of the best American novels I've read in a long time ...[an] artful triptych of a novel
- Time Out New York
A stellar addition to-and keen twist on-a genre that up until now has been dominated by men