Joe Sacco's, "Safe Area Gorazde: The war in Eastern Bosnia 1992-95"
This book is a special find for many reasons. The book is at once an in-depth account of a war from within its battlefields, an exquisitely drawn graphic report that betters graphic novels (to use the term "comic" or "illustrated book" betrays the gravity of this effort), or even the best war fiction for that matter. War photographs depict the physical destruction; magazines and TV news editorialize; novels make war poignant; but Sacco has surpassed all other available venues in capturing war with its historical, political, social, background statistically and spiritually intact that the effect on the reader is devastatingly personal.
Sacco clarifies what mainstream media stylizes. He puts the Bosnian war in objective context as a culmination of religious animosity that had been brewing for generations with each side taking its turn as victim and oppressor. In a very telling segment he mentions:
Croats are predominantly Roman Catholic, Serbs are Orthodox Christians, Muslims are generally descended from Slavs converted to Islam during a 500-year Ottoman occupation. Religion is the only distinguishing characteristic, otherwise, they are all South Slavs using pretty much the same language.
By illustrating others' personal accounts alongside his own observations, Sacco creates a spellbinding drama of operatic proportions. The narrative is as funny, ironic, and factual as a conversation with a loved one. The shock is in realizing that this is not fiction. Ethnic cleansing stemming from racial and religious intolerance is not just a distant nightmare. Above all else, this book informs the reader on the gradual disintegration of a harmonious society when divisive roots are stoked by rulers seeking greedy entitlement.
Sacco clarifies what mainstream media stylizes. He puts the Bosnian war in objective context as a culmination of religious animosity that had been brewing for generations with each side taking its turn as victim and oppressor. In a very telling segment he mentions:
Croats are predominantly Roman Catholic, Serbs are Orthodox Christians, Muslims are generally descended from Slavs converted to Islam during a 500-year Ottoman occupation. Religion is the only distinguishing characteristic, otherwise, they are all South Slavs using pretty much the same language.
By illustrating others' personal accounts alongside his own observations, Sacco creates a spellbinding drama of operatic proportions. The narrative is as funny, ironic, and factual as a conversation with a loved one. The shock is in realizing that this is not fiction. Ethnic cleansing stemming from racial and religious intolerance is not just a distant nightmare. Above all else, this book informs the reader on the gradual disintegration of a harmonious society when divisive roots are stoked by rulers seeking greedy entitlement.
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