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Michel Faber sends David Cameron latest novel in protest over Syria

In an accompanying letter, Faber tells the prime minister that he realises “a book cannot compete with a bomb in its ability to cause death and misery, but each of us must make whatever small contribution we can, and I figure that if you drop my novel from a plane, it might hit a Syrian on the head”.

Faber, the author of acclaimed novels including The Crimson Petal and the White and Under the Skin, said the move was intended to be “a satirical gesture, just to let off some impotent steam”. “I am donating this copy of my latest novel to the war effort,” he writes to Cameron in a letter which he posted, along with his book, ending his proposal that his novel be dropped from a plane with the line: “With luck, we might even kill a child: their skulls are quite soft.”

Obviously, said Faber, the delivery “is not actually going to do anything”. But he added: “I just felt so heartsick, despondent and exasperated that the human race, and particularly the benighted political arm of the human race, has learned nothing in 10,000 years, 100,000 years, however long we’ve been waging wars, and clearly the likes of Cameron are not interested in what individuals have to say.”