Zlata Filipović is a normal girl, living with her parents in Sarajevo at the beginning of the '90s. She goes to school and has piano lessons, hangs out with her friends, and is spending time skiing on the Jahorina mountain. Her childhood gets ruined within a few days only when she notices her parents are concerned about the current situation in the country. One day, her father shows up in a military uniform, and the next day the city gets bombed.

To keep herself sane in the middle of the war zone, and because all of her friends left while she needed them the most, Zlata starts writing a diary about her daily life during the siege. Eventually, her diary becomes her best friend, someone she can talk to and lean on in order to survive.

Zlata is considered to be Anne Frank of Sarajevo. Her writing, aside from being raw, is quite intelligent and resourceful. It is surely a masterpiece among journals and biographies.

This isn't the type of book that will teach you the history of the Balkan's war but it will show you what it looks like being stuck in the capital city whose siege lasted 3 years, 10 months, 3 weeks and 3 days and is counting for the longest siege in the history. If you are fond of journals and personal memoirs, then you will surely find this interesting.

I liked that this was a completely accurate and truthful interpretation of the siege. Her diary starts with lighter themes- vacations to Jahorina mountain with her parents and friends- and then it starts to go downhill when one day her father showed up wearing a military uniform and when her friends slowly left the city.

As someone who comes from the same country as Zlata, this book set me back at the time of war and what was happening in my neighborhood back then. Even though this is a short and quick reading, I couldn't finish it in one take because it triggered some memories I buried inside long time ago.

Zlata Filipović (born 3 December 1980) is a Bosnian-Irish diarist. She kept a diary from 1991 to 1993 when she was a child living in Sarajevo during the Bosnian war.

She and her family survived the war and moved to Paris where they lived for a year.

This is written from the perspective of a ten years old child. It's a completely honest and innocent yet disturbing interpretation of the war. Even though Zlata was very young when she wrote it, the way she wrote about events and her personal views of the world she was living in says that she was a very intelligent and observing child. I recommend this book to everyone who doesn't know what it looks like for civilians to be in the middle of the war zone.

Interested in buying this? Support Writing.Com by making your purchase of Zlata's Diary: A Child's Life in Sarajevo (Puffin Non-fiction)   from Amazon.Com!

Created Apr 30, 2020 at 10:57am • Submit your own review...