Vulture

A darkly funny, heart-wrenching satire that tears through the guts of the war news industry

"This timely tragi-comic satire tears through the guts of the war news industry."

"Brave, funny and beautifully written.”

"Martha Gelhorn meets Martin Amis."

“In a debut redolent of Graham Greene, Phoebe Greenwood brings to life — in all their cynicism and all their humanity — the bullying, bragging, brilliant characters we rely on to bring us the news.”

“There is much in this book that will be unsettlingly familiar to those who haunt the world’s frontlines as witnesses, addicts, and driven personalities. What is strikingly different is Phoebe Greenwood’s voice. This is a novel of honesty, humour and sadness told with great verve.” 

“Razor sharp and poignantly funny, Vulture is a remarkable debut. Greenwood writes with rage, wit and deep empathy, exposing the hypocrisies of the war media complex and making us confront our own complicity as readers in the process."

"Vulture is the Scoop of our age - an absurdist tale of western media cynicism exposed by the unending horror of Gaza. Greenwood is a natural born writer and in Sara Byrne, she has created an antiheroine narrator whose view of the world is so darkly acerbic and sharply observed that, even as Sara appals us more with every turned page, we cannot bear to leave her side for a moment."

“Vulture is so sharp and funny, and Phoebe Greenwood writes with such intelligence, such a flair for character and such an eye for the details of life in a war zone, that as you barrel forward you at first don’t notice just how much sting there is to this book, and then you’re left at the end, stunned and amazed. A superb novel on reporting and war.”

“A powerful and gripping tale that is brave and brilliant. Greenwood explodes the romanticism of the foreign war correspondent with a sharp, satirical intelligence that is funny, moving and unforgettable.”

“A captivating and explosively comic first novel – Joseph Heller''s extracurricular hijinks collide with Graham Greene''s toxic innocence.”

"Phoebe Greenwood brings all her years of distinction as a foreign correspondent and mashes them into a dark comedy worthy of Jesse Armstrong and Armando Iannucci.”

"Imagine Phoebe Waller-Bridge''s Fleabag as a war correspondent in Gaza and you''d get Sara, the cynical and raunchy antiheroine of Phoebe Greenwood''s Vulture... a daring dark comedy."

"Blistering.... Greenwood captures the chaos of the conflict, the terror of living under constant bombardment, and the uglier aspects of war journalism."

“Vulture is a dark satire with real claws.”

"Fleabag goes to Gaza: a timely satire of war reporters.....Witty and sharply drawn."

“A satirical new novel, Vulture offers an inside look into the life of journalists on the frontline.”

"Astute and darkly humorous debut....Vulture is a caustic study of what it means to report from a conflict, and particularly relevant to the current moment."

  

“Sobering, blackly humorous and acutely observed.”

“Phoebe Greenwood’s debut novel is both a commentary on the ethics of war reporting and a satirical portrayal of the news industry….To intercut horror with humour is a tough brief, but Greenwood manages it without trivialising her subject.”

"Exceptional."

“Greenwood’s background as a journalist gives the novel its authenticity, but what elevates Vulture is her literary control…..Few novels manage to capture the psychic toll of journalism without lapsing into cliché. Vulture does so with ruthless intelligence and genuine compassion.”

“Dr. Strangelove,” “Catch-22,” and “MASH” collide in British journalist Phoebe Greenwood’s blistering debut novel, “Vulture,” a darkly comic, searing satire grounded in historic politics, suffused with incipient journalism and imbued with self-aggrandizement."

"A gritty, superbly written and important story about war reporting that gets right to the heart of the conflict: Vulture is an outstanding debut."

First person piece: "My years reporting on Gaza broke me down, Why did it take so long for the world to become outraged?"

"Yellowface for journalism! I tore through this dark satire of war reporting told by an unlikeable narrator, desperate for a big story in the 2010s Gaza war. Scoop for the 21st century."

"Greenwood, herself a former Jerusalem-based reporter, gives Sara just the right amount of cockiness and careless resolve to make her ambitions plausible, and despite keeping the focus on an outsider who’s at once cynical and naive, the novel provides an unflinching view of the conflict’s human toll. This striking portrait of hubris will keep readers glued to the page."

"Greenwood, a former war correspondent, skewers the news industry in her debut novel."

"Highly reminiscent of Scoop, Evelyn Waugh''s canonical satire... Vulture goes to much darker places."

“In the early 2000s, the go-to destination for the Western media in Gaza was the Al Deira Hotel…. An Ottoman-style palace by the sea, the establishment offered a five-star refuge from the missile and drone strikes just outside its walls….Phoebe Greenwood’s novel conjures up this world with mordant humor and breathtaking immediacy.”

"Vulture is a hugely accomplished first novel, one that manages to be entertaining and sobering in equa lmeasure."

“Set to release in August, Greenwood’s debut has already been praised by early reviewers for its tinges of dark humor, brutally open writing, and satirical approach to war journalism.” “Set on a beach in Gaza in 2012, this dark and tragic satire examines the media’s complicity in :gestures at world:”

"Though it’s set amid another Gaza conflict, Vulture is less about the war than it is about foreign opportunism and interference."

A darkly funny, heart-wrenching satire that tears through the guts of the war news industry 

"Brave, funny and beautifully written.”—Martin McDonagh, writer and director

"A dark satire with real claws."—The Independent

Catch-22 on speed and set in the Middle East, Vulture is a fast-paced satire of the war news industry and its moral blind spots, and a tragi-comic coming-of-age novel.

An ambitious young journalist, Sara is sent to cover a war from the Beach Hotel in Gaza. The four-star hotel is a global media hub, promising safety and generator-powered internet, with hotel staff catering tirelessly to the needs of the world’s media, even as their own homes and families are under threat.

Sara is determined to launch her career as a star correspondent. So, when her fixer Nasser refuses to set up the dangerous story she thinks will win her a front page, she turns instead to Fadi, the youngest member of a powerful militant family. Driven by the demons of her entitled yet damaging childhood, Sara will stop at nothing to prove herself in this war, even if it means bringing disaster upon those around her.

Greenwood’s debut novel brings readers into the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and with audacity and humour depicts the media’s complicity in this ongoing tragedy.

• | Author: Phoebe Greenwood
• | Publisher: Europa Editions (UK) Ltd
• | Publication Date: Jul 03, 2025
• | Number of Pages:
• | Language:
• | Binding: Hardback
• | ISBN-13: 9781787705791
• | ISBN-10: 178770579X