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S.: A Novel About the Balkans
A Bosnian woman who was repeatedly raped by Serbian soldiers in 1992 recalls the events as she prepares to give birth to a child conceived through their abuse of her.
201 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1999
85 people are currently reading
7,562 people want to read
About the author
Slavenka Drakulić
32books650followersSlavenka Drakulić (1949) is a noted Croatian writer and publicist, whose books have been translated into many languages.
In her fiction Drakulić has touched on a variety of topics, such as dealing with illness and fear of death in Holograms of fear; the destructive power of sexual desire in Marble skin; an unconventional relationship in The taste of a man; cruelty of war and rape victims in S. A Novel About the Balkans (made into a feature film As If I Am Not There, directed by Juanita Wilson); a fictionalized life of Frida Kahlo in Frida's bed. In her novel Optužena (English translation forthcoming), Drakulić writes about the not often addressed topic of child abuse by her own mother. In her novel Dora i Minotaur Drakulic writes about Dora Maar and her turbulent relationship to Pablo Picasso, and how it affected Dora's intellectual identity. In her last novel Mileva Einstein, teorija tuge she writes about Einstein's wife Mileva Maric. The novel is written from Mileva's point of view, especially describing how motherhood and financial and emotional dependence on Einstein took her away from science and professional life.
Drakulić has also published eight non-fiction books. Her main interests in non-fiction include the political and ideological situation in post-communist countries, war crimes, nationalism, feminist issues, illness, and the female body. In How We Survived Communism; Balkan Express; Café Europa she deals with everyday life in communist and post-communist countries. In 2021, Drakulic wrote a sequel to Café Europa, Café Europa Revisited: How to Survive Post-Communism. Drakulic wrote the history of communism through the perspective of animals in A Guided Tour Through the Museum of Communism. She explores evil in ordinary people and choices they make in They Would Never Hurt a Fly War Criminals On Trial In The Hague, about the people who committed crimes during the Croatian Homeland war. On the other side, in Flesh of her flesh (available in English only as an e-book) Drakulić writes about the ultimate good � people who decide to donate their own kidney to a person they have never met. Her first book, Deadly sins of feminism (1984) is available in Croatian only: Smrtni grijesi feminizma.
Drakulić is a contributing editor in The Nation (USA) and a freelance author whose essays have appeared in The New Republic, The New York Times Magazine and The New York Review Of Books. She contributes to Süddeutsche Zeitung (Germany), Internazionale (Italy), Dagens Nyheter (Sweden), The Guardian (UK), Eurozine and other newspapers and magazines.
Slavenka Drakulić is the recipient of the 2004 Leipzig Book-fair ”Award for European Understanding.� At the Gathering of International Writers in Prague in 2010 she was proclaimed as one of the most influential European writers of our time.
In her fiction Drakulić has touched on a variety of topics, such as dealing with illness and fear of death in Holograms of fear; the destructive power of sexual desire in Marble skin; an unconventional relationship in The taste of a man; cruelty of war and rape victims in S. A Novel About the Balkans (made into a feature film As If I Am Not There, directed by Juanita Wilson); a fictionalized life of Frida Kahlo in Frida's bed. In her novel Optužena (English translation forthcoming), Drakulić writes about the not often addressed topic of child abuse by her own mother. In her novel Dora i Minotaur Drakulic writes about Dora Maar and her turbulent relationship to Pablo Picasso, and how it affected Dora's intellectual identity. In her last novel Mileva Einstein, teorija tuge she writes about Einstein's wife Mileva Maric. The novel is written from Mileva's point of view, especially describing how motherhood and financial and emotional dependence on Einstein took her away from science and professional life.
Drakulić has also published eight non-fiction books. Her main interests in non-fiction include the political and ideological situation in post-communist countries, war crimes, nationalism, feminist issues, illness, and the female body. In How We Survived Communism; Balkan Express; Café Europa she deals with everyday life in communist and post-communist countries. In 2021, Drakulic wrote a sequel to Café Europa, Café Europa Revisited: How to Survive Post-Communism. Drakulic wrote the history of communism through the perspective of animals in A Guided Tour Through the Museum of Communism. She explores evil in ordinary people and choices they make in They Would Never Hurt a Fly War Criminals On Trial In The Hague, about the people who committed crimes during the Croatian Homeland war. On the other side, in Flesh of her flesh (available in English only as an e-book) Drakulić writes about the ultimate good � people who decide to donate their own kidney to a person they have never met. Her first book, Deadly sins of feminism (1984) is available in Croatian only: Smrtni grijesi feminizma.
Drakulić is a contributing editor in The Nation (USA) and a freelance author whose essays have appeared in The New Republic, The New York Times Magazine and The New York Review Of Books. She contributes to Süddeutsche Zeitung (Germany), Internazionale (Italy), Dagens Nyheter (Sweden), The Guardian (UK), Eurozine and other newspapers and magazines.
Slavenka Drakulić is the recipient of the 2004 Leipzig Book-fair ”Award for European Understanding.� At the Gathering of International Writers in Prague in 2010 she was proclaimed as one of the most influential European writers of our time.
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April 3, 2022
PENSAVAMO CHE DALL'ORRORE CI SAREMMO DIFESI NON VEDENDOLO, NON GUARDANDOLO...
Lo stupro come arma di guerra.
Il titolo è una citazione dal capolavoro di Primo Levi.
È un libro duro, che si fa fatica a leggere di notte perché nel silenzio l'orrore sembra ancora più acuto.
Slavenka Drakulić è una scrittrice tosta e coraggiosa, affronta argomenti pericolosi, entra nel cuore nero dei fatti e lo racconta senza paura.
Ma usando tatto, garbo, intelligenza, sensibilità, talento.
Sarajevo 1993.
Una giovane bosniaca musulmana viene catturata da soldati serbi, chiusa in un campo di prigionia, ogni notte picchiata, umiliata, stuprata.
Adesso è libera, a Stoccolma, partorisce in ospedale, vorrebbe liberarsi del figlio che non sente suo, ma�
Il racconto dall'interno del campo di concentramento e dal centro della violenza di solito è fatto direttamente dalla vittima, dal sopravvissuto: qui invece è condotto in terza persona, raccogliendo quelli che si immaginano le confessioni alla psicologa della protagonista, vittima sopravvissuta all'orrore. La terza persona sembra accrescere l’orrore: è una voce che solitamente rimarca una distanza, in questo caso sembra una distanza che aiuta a mettere a fuoco, a capire meglio, a muoversi nella tenebra.
Andree Kaiser: Sarajevo 1993.
L'orrore di cui qui si parla è la guerra di Bosnia e il racconto è ambientato nel 1993, nel pieno dell'assedio e massacro di Sarajevo, due prima di Srebenica.
La protagonista non ha nome, e non l’hanno neppure le altre donne: hanno perso identità, dignità, umanità, insieme al corpo. È come se non esistessero, come se fossero scomparse.
E gli stupratori, i torturatori hanno un volto noto, nella vita precedente, solo qualche mese prima, sono forse stati amici del fratello della vittima. Un elemento che intensifica l’atrocità.
Siamo in un territorio circoscritto dove regna la morte e non si sente più il dolore, perché è più forte di te e ti divora, si può quasi tastarlo sotto la pelle, dolore per il quale non esiste conforto.
Un territorio dove accettare la propria morte rappresenta una porta aperta verso il futuro.
Dove la paura paralizza i pensieri, i gesti, le sensazioni.
Dove per sopravvivere si deve obbedire a quelli che hanno le armi, perché la tua vita, proprio come la tua morte, non dipende più da una tua scelta.
Dove si è ridotti a essere solo un corpo, e molto spesso neppure quello, molto spesso si perde ogni diritto su se stessi e anche il corpo viene espropriato, come succede alla protagonista di questo libro.
Che è un romanzo, e anche un reportage.
Drakulić riesce a spiegare e sondare e trasmettere anche quello che appare più oscuro.
Gli assassini hanno bisogno del silenzio e dell'oblio, ma le vittime non devono concederglielo.
Slavenka Drakulic ha deciso di descrivere l'indescrivibile. C'è arte magistrale nel suo coraggio. E ancora una volta forse solo l'arte può avvicinarci alla consapevolezza della nostra follia contemporanea.
Lo stupro come arma di guerra.
Il titolo è una citazione dal capolavoro di Primo Levi.
È un libro duro, che si fa fatica a leggere di notte perché nel silenzio l'orrore sembra ancora più acuto.
Slavenka Drakulić è una scrittrice tosta e coraggiosa, affronta argomenti pericolosi, entra nel cuore nero dei fatti e lo racconta senza paura.
Ma usando tatto, garbo, intelligenza, sensibilità, talento.
Sarajevo 1993.
Una giovane bosniaca musulmana viene catturata da soldati serbi, chiusa in un campo di prigionia, ogni notte picchiata, umiliata, stuprata.
Adesso è libera, a Stoccolma, partorisce in ospedale, vorrebbe liberarsi del figlio che non sente suo, ma�
Il racconto dall'interno del campo di concentramento e dal centro della violenza di solito è fatto direttamente dalla vittima, dal sopravvissuto: qui invece è condotto in terza persona, raccogliendo quelli che si immaginano le confessioni alla psicologa della protagonista, vittima sopravvissuta all'orrore. La terza persona sembra accrescere l’orrore: è una voce che solitamente rimarca una distanza, in questo caso sembra una distanza che aiuta a mettere a fuoco, a capire meglio, a muoversi nella tenebra.
Andree Kaiser: Sarajevo 1993.
L'orrore di cui qui si parla è la guerra di Bosnia e il racconto è ambientato nel 1993, nel pieno dell'assedio e massacro di Sarajevo, due prima di Srebenica.
La protagonista non ha nome, e non l’hanno neppure le altre donne: hanno perso identità, dignità, umanità, insieme al corpo. È come se non esistessero, come se fossero scomparse.
E gli stupratori, i torturatori hanno un volto noto, nella vita precedente, solo qualche mese prima, sono forse stati amici del fratello della vittima. Un elemento che intensifica l’atrocità.
Siamo in un territorio circoscritto dove regna la morte e non si sente più il dolore, perché è più forte di te e ti divora, si può quasi tastarlo sotto la pelle, dolore per il quale non esiste conforto.
Un territorio dove accettare la propria morte rappresenta una porta aperta verso il futuro.
Dove la paura paralizza i pensieri, i gesti, le sensazioni.
Dove per sopravvivere si deve obbedire a quelli che hanno le armi, perché la tua vita, proprio come la tua morte, non dipende più da una tua scelta.
Dove si è ridotti a essere solo un corpo, e molto spesso neppure quello, molto spesso si perde ogni diritto su se stessi e anche il corpo viene espropriato, come succede alla protagonista di questo libro.
Che è un romanzo, e anche un reportage.
Drakulić riesce a spiegare e sondare e trasmettere anche quello che appare più oscuro.
Gli assassini hanno bisogno del silenzio e dell'oblio, ma le vittime non devono concederglielo.
Slavenka Drakulic ha deciso di descrivere l'indescrivibile. C'è arte magistrale nel suo coraggio. E ancora una volta forse solo l'arte può avvicinarci alla consapevolezza della nostra follia contemporanea.
November 25, 2021
We don’t get to learn her name - As If I Am Not There is the original title, and it is true. Throughout the story she remains just S., the lack of name fitting the dehumanization in the brutality of the war in the 1992 Bosnia - a recent war, just three decades ago now, a senseless war with neighbor turning against neighbor, so surreal and and coldly brutal.
Her crime - the one that earned her the sentence in the camp, brutal treatment, torture, rape - was simple. Wrong ethnicity. That’s enough to make you the “other�, subhuman, a thing.
This is a horrifying book, and yet never gratuitous, never becoming focused on depravity and violence for the sake of shock. More than anything, it’s somber in its almost detached narration through the eyes of a woman who sees her reality become something unreal, something that should not be happening in a world that purports to be sane. "Is it good to remember or is it easier to survive if you forget you ever lived a normal life?"
What is it about people that allows them to commit dehumanizing atrocities to others? To blindly follow orders and not stopping even when those on the other side are neighbors, friends, little sisters of childhood friends? To go to lengths to inflict pain and torture on others? To willingly and gleefully become monsters?
For women in this book - a young teacher S. and peasant women around her in the camp - the war takes a path familiar over millenia for women. The weapons of war for them end up being violence, subjugation, brutal rape, the voiced intent to force the women to bear the offspring of the enemy, and murder at the whim of the soldiers. These women are things to be used and discarded when broken.
It’s a difficult book to read. And even the rescue from the camp does not end the horror for S. Now she is living the life of a refugee, carrying a child of her rapists, and faced with people in her new country who do not - cannot - understand what she has been through, who are barely aware that a war rages on not that far away from their safe haven. How can you recover yourself from the horror you’ve been through? How do you even know whether there’s even “you� left in there? “How can you talk about war when you know that the person you are talking to cannot even conceive of such horror?�
Drakulić in her narration manages to achieve both the uncomfortable intimacy of seeing through the horror as it is happening and still keeping a bit of a dissociative-like distance, conveying the numbness resulting from being part of something so atrocious that it verges on surreal. It’s that illusory distance that allows S. to bear what is happening to her and around her, and yet reminds you of how fragile our defenses actually are. And any little bit of kindness that manages to survive in the horror of war is like a stab to the heart.
Devastating.
“Her picture of reality is shattering, as if the television screen had exploded that day and the war had simply spilled into her apartment. Now she herself is caught up in this rushing torrent. If she wants to survive, she will have to obey those who have the weapons. Her life, like her death, is no longer a matter of choice.�
Her crime - the one that earned her the sentence in the camp, brutal treatment, torture, rape - was simple. Wrong ethnicity. That’s enough to make you the “other�, subhuman, a thing.
“The moment the armed men appeared in their village, each one of them had ceased to be a person. Now they are even less so, they have been reduced to a collection of similar beings of the female gender, of the same blood. Blood alone is important, the right blood of the soldiers versus the wrong blood of the women.�
This is a horrifying book, and yet never gratuitous, never becoming focused on depravity and violence for the sake of shock. More than anything, it’s somber in its almost detached narration through the eyes of a woman who sees her reality become something unreal, something that should not be happening in a world that purports to be sane. "Is it good to remember or is it easier to survive if you forget you ever lived a normal life?"
"Perhaps that happens to people in wartime, words suddenly become superfluous because they can no longer express reality. Reality escapes the words we know, and we simply lack new words to encapsulate this new experience."
What is it about people that allows them to commit dehumanizing atrocities to others? To blindly follow orders and not stopping even when those on the other side are neighbors, friends, little sisters of childhood friends? To go to lengths to inflict pain and torture on others? To willingly and gleefully become monsters?
"Only now does S. understand that a woman's body never really belongs to the woman. It belongs to others—to the man, the children, the family. And in wartime to soldiers."
"Now, however, she sees that for her war began the moment others started dividing and labelling her, when nobody asked her anything any more."
For women in this book - a young teacher S. and peasant women around her in the camp - the war takes a path familiar over millenia for women. The weapons of war for them end up being violence, subjugation, brutal rape, the voiced intent to force the women to bear the offspring of the enemy, and murder at the whim of the soldiers. These women are things to be used and discarded when broken.
"In the meantime, her life has become something different, unrecognizable. Or perhaps unimaginable. Lying in her hospital bed in Stockholm she still does not know what to call it, although she knows that the word is: war. But for her, war is merely a general term, a collective noun for so many individual stories. War is every individual, it is what happened to that individual, how it happened to that individual, how it happened, how it changed that person's life. For her, war is this child she had to give birth to."
It’s a difficult book to read. And even the rescue from the camp does not end the horror for S. Now she is living the life of a refugee, carrying a child of her rapists, and faced with people in her new country who do not - cannot - understand what she has been through, who are barely aware that a war rages on not that far away from their safe haven. How can you recover yourself from the horror you’ve been through? How do you even know whether there’s even “you� left in there? “How can you talk about war when you know that the person you are talking to cannot even conceive of such horror?�
“That was the only time she heard the women talk about rape. They did not talk about it later, they did not mention it again. If word got around that they had been defiled they would not be able to go back home to their villages, their husbands or parents. So they hold their tongues, they really believe they will go back home, S. thinks to herself.�
Drakulić in her narration manages to achieve both the uncomfortable intimacy of seeing through the horror as it is happening and still keeping a bit of a dissociative-like distance, conveying the numbness resulting from being part of something so atrocious that it verges on surreal. It’s that illusory distance that allows S. to bear what is happening to her and around her, and yet reminds you of how fragile our defenses actually are. And any little bit of kindness that manages to survive in the horror of war is like a stab to the heart.
Devastating.
May 28, 2023
"
A human being survives by his ability to forget.
"
Varlam Shalamov
Even though it is happening right next to you, you don’t believe it. And even if you do believe it, you cannot dwell on it, it would be the end of you. You believe it only if you yourself see it. Perhaps this deliberate blindness is a form of self-preservation.
Slavenka Drakulić has written a novel based on the true stories of Bosnian women. It is a heartbreaking and devastating book about a woman who suffers enormously due to the war and ethnic cleansing. The story of a woman who finds the strength to endure uninhibited cruelty and pain.
It would not be an exaggeration to say that this is one of the strongest books about war and a dire effect it has on ordinary people. At about 200 pages, the novel is not a long read, but I had to pause between reading sessions. This book is not the one you can easily complete in one or two sittings.
The story is situated in Bosnia in the early 1990-s. The war that broke up after the collapse of Yugoslavia is at its height, claiming more and more souls, destroying more and more lives, and ousting hope from the land covered with blood and pain. The war turns ordinary people into monsters capable of the worst crimes one is unable to fathom.
S. has just given birth to a healthy baby boy at a Swedish hospital. She looks at the baby with apprehension. She is afraid of touching him. The young woman tries not to succumb to painful memories that keep undermining her.
S. is a twenty-nine-year-old Bosnian woman of mixed ethnicity. Her Father is Bosnian Muslim, Mother is Serbian.
An educated urban girl moves to the village to work as a teacher at a local school. Soon her life is about to change. The men with rifles invade the village and force all the inhabitants - men, women, and children - to board the buses and leave their homes, their belongings, and their lives behind.
That day S. sees herself from the outside for the first time, as if she is not there. Later this ability to distance herself from the horrific reality will help her to cope with it. A psychologist would probably be able to explain this phenomenon, but I found the way the protagonist’s feelings were portrayed to be heartbreakingly moving and sincere.
The life of the protagonist has now been split into two parts - the past in which she had family, friends, work, and leisure time, and the present.
The present is full of fear, acute frustration, violence, pain, and death.
The soldiers who disrupted the life of the village and attacked the villagers speak the same language as their victims. Some of them may have studied at the school where S. was working.
Pitting neighbor against neighbor is the tragic reality of that war which acknowledges no limits.
In the eyes of Serbian soldiers, S. is 'guilty' of having the ‘wrong� blood. Along with other residents of the village, she is sent to a camp where all the prisoners are to sleep on the concrete and be submitted to constant humiliation. They must try to survive, one day after another. All this happens because one category of people has believed in their superiority over another category.
The smell of death permeates the place, figuratively and literally. The odor of hatred hangs in the air.
How come all these horrors become possible? Why did her polite neighbor become her deadly enemy? When did that transformation happen? S. does not have an answer. Can anyone claim to know the exact answer?
The fate of the prisoners in the camp is harrowing. Captured males will be mostly killed, many being tortured. Captured women and girls are constantly humiliated and abused, repeatedly raped, and beaten. Many are to die. The very young are not spared the so-called 'women’s room.' The aim is to dehumanize people, to humiliate them as much as possible, and to use the degrees of humiliation to disqualify them as human. Sexual violence as a weapon of war.
Hardly anyone who survived a camp would be able to forget what went on in such places.
The rapist soldiers, brainwashed and often drunk, are no exception. Their lives have already been ruined. Many of them will be swallowed up by the darkness and followed by ghosts wherever they go.
The women who manage to survive will be exchanged and transported to the refugee camp in Croatia. S. will be one of those women.
Life inside a camp has taught S. a few lessons.
Fear is the absence of all emotion, it is emptiness, it is as if your whole body is drained of blood all at once.
Horrors should not, cannot be compared. They should not even be described. There is little hope that anyone will understand them anyway.
People are weak and it is not good for them to be confronted with temptation.
Smells are a dangerous thing, they catapult you back into the past.
Perhaps this is the only way to survive, by living from one moment to the next.
The fate of a refugee lands S. in Stockholm. Deeply traumatized, she is struggling with the consequences of the war. But she is alive and she is not going to “let them win.� She is not going to let hatred win.
The story ends on a cautiously optimistic note. Hope for a better future still breathes. It was not killed in that horrific camp surrounded by a barbed wire fence where so many innocent people were tortured and many lost their lives.
There is a movie adaptation of this novel called As If I Am Not There (2010).
Varlam Shalamov
Even though it is happening right next to you, you don’t believe it. And even if you do believe it, you cannot dwell on it, it would be the end of you. You believe it only if you yourself see it. Perhaps this deliberate blindness is a form of self-preservation.
Slavenka Drakulić has written a novel based on the true stories of Bosnian women. It is a heartbreaking and devastating book about a woman who suffers enormously due to the war and ethnic cleansing. The story of a woman who finds the strength to endure uninhibited cruelty and pain.
It would not be an exaggeration to say that this is one of the strongest books about war and a dire effect it has on ordinary people. At about 200 pages, the novel is not a long read, but I had to pause between reading sessions. This book is not the one you can easily complete in one or two sittings.
The story is situated in Bosnia in the early 1990-s. The war that broke up after the collapse of Yugoslavia is at its height, claiming more and more souls, destroying more and more lives, and ousting hope from the land covered with blood and pain. The war turns ordinary people into monsters capable of the worst crimes one is unable to fathom.
S. has just given birth to a healthy baby boy at a Swedish hospital. She looks at the baby with apprehension. She is afraid of touching him. The young woman tries not to succumb to painful memories that keep undermining her.
S. is a twenty-nine-year-old Bosnian woman of mixed ethnicity. Her Father is Bosnian Muslim, Mother is Serbian.
An educated urban girl moves to the village to work as a teacher at a local school. Soon her life is about to change. The men with rifles invade the village and force all the inhabitants - men, women, and children - to board the buses and leave their homes, their belongings, and their lives behind.
That day S. sees herself from the outside for the first time, as if she is not there. Later this ability to distance herself from the horrific reality will help her to cope with it. A psychologist would probably be able to explain this phenomenon, but I found the way the protagonist’s feelings were portrayed to be heartbreakingly moving and sincere.
The life of the protagonist has now been split into two parts - the past in which she had family, friends, work, and leisure time, and the present.
The present is full of fear, acute frustration, violence, pain, and death.
The soldiers who disrupted the life of the village and attacked the villagers speak the same language as their victims. Some of them may have studied at the school where S. was working.
Pitting neighbor against neighbor is the tragic reality of that war which acknowledges no limits.
In the eyes of Serbian soldiers, S. is 'guilty' of having the ‘wrong� blood. Along with other residents of the village, she is sent to a camp where all the prisoners are to sleep on the concrete and be submitted to constant humiliation. They must try to survive, one day after another. All this happens because one category of people has believed in their superiority over another category.
The smell of death permeates the place, figuratively and literally. The odor of hatred hangs in the air.
How come all these horrors become possible? Why did her polite neighbor become her deadly enemy? When did that transformation happen? S. does not have an answer. Can anyone claim to know the exact answer?
The fate of the prisoners in the camp is harrowing. Captured males will be mostly killed, many being tortured. Captured women and girls are constantly humiliated and abused, repeatedly raped, and beaten. Many are to die. The very young are not spared the so-called 'women’s room.' The aim is to dehumanize people, to humiliate them as much as possible, and to use the degrees of humiliation to disqualify them as human. Sexual violence as a weapon of war.
Hardly anyone who survived a camp would be able to forget what went on in such places.
The rapist soldiers, brainwashed and often drunk, are no exception. Their lives have already been ruined. Many of them will be swallowed up by the darkness and followed by ghosts wherever they go.
The women who manage to survive will be exchanged and transported to the refugee camp in Croatia. S. will be one of those women.
Life inside a camp has taught S. a few lessons.
Fear is the absence of all emotion, it is emptiness, it is as if your whole body is drained of blood all at once.
Horrors should not, cannot be compared. They should not even be described. There is little hope that anyone will understand them anyway.
People are weak and it is not good for them to be confronted with temptation.
Smells are a dangerous thing, they catapult you back into the past.
Perhaps this is the only way to survive, by living from one moment to the next.
The fate of a refugee lands S. in Stockholm. Deeply traumatized, she is struggling with the consequences of the war. But she is alive and she is not going to “let them win.� She is not going to let hatred win.
The story ends on a cautiously optimistic note. Hope for a better future still breathes. It was not killed in that horrific camp surrounded by a barbed wire fence where so many innocent people were tortured and many lost their lives.
There is a movie adaptation of this novel called As If I Am Not There (2010).
March 30, 2019
Croatian journalist, novelist, and essayist Slavenka Drakulić has written a terrifyingly fierce and painful novel of a country's lost identity, told through the suffering of a nameless group of female inmates in a camp and their difficult attempts to rebuild their lives after liberation. All the characters are simply known by a single initial, with the main focal point being a woman called S. She has just given birth in a Stockholm hospital to a child she wants nothing to do with after being repeatedly raped whilst being held captive by Serb forces the previous year (1992). S. regards the child as a tumour finally removed from her body. In flashback we encounter the horrors in which she and other women had to endure.
Drakulić opens the depraved doors to the killing rooms of the Balkans war, and shows us the raped, tortured, and murdered bodies of civilians. The immediacy and powerful punch to the guts of the novel rises not from the unbelievable things it tells us, but from the opposite: What's unbelievable is that we are witnessing again horribly familiar events. Fixated by the overriding example of the Holocaust, we don't notice when it happens again, and again - never quite in the same way of course, and not on the 6 million scale we can't stop focusing on. That's when the narrative of one ordinary life becomes essential again, as a reminder that decency is frail and wars will continually make monsters. The middle third of the book was extremely uncomfortable to read, it was like being stuck down the dark alley of an ugly nightmare, you want nothing more than to just wake up.
Most of the women once settled into the stone warehouse that is now their new home try all so hard to just shut down and dislocate themselves from their own bodies. Nobody wants to talk of what goes on elsewhere in the camp, things have been heard they would rather forget, as Drakulic dissects the terrible resilience of the human mind. One can bear anything if one is not quite present and hovers in the shallows of the moment. Drakulic writes in the present tense (the hospital) from S.'s point of view. That approach presents her with the problem of how to combine the story of a woman who can't afford memory or self-consciousness with a reflection on the savage experience she undergoes; she solves this by fusing her logical consciousness with S.'s numbed condition. Cleverly using an indirect third-person narrative whilst in the camp allows the writer to achieve the psychic distance necessary to meditate on the meanings of incomprehensible brutality.
The novel may come to a close with some sort of hope, as S. in tears, moves her babyboy onto her breast for a feed, but it was tremendously sad to see a mother turn away in disgust from her newborn child, this living, breathing, small and fragile neonate who had just entered the world had done nothing wrong, and has no say, only asking to be loved. Will the boy need the truth later in life about his conception? - or just a fictional story about the kind of decent regular father so many other war orphans lost.
I have to admit, had I not read many other powerful and haunting books on the horrors of civilians trapped in war, I might have struggled to get through the worst bits. It chilled my blood in it's portrayal of humanity's darkest side. However, I will likely remember this novel more for the small humane acts of kindness and courage shown. They may only have been little things, but seemed huge in the context of the story.
Drakulić opens the depraved doors to the killing rooms of the Balkans war, and shows us the raped, tortured, and murdered bodies of civilians. The immediacy and powerful punch to the guts of the novel rises not from the unbelievable things it tells us, but from the opposite: What's unbelievable is that we are witnessing again horribly familiar events. Fixated by the overriding example of the Holocaust, we don't notice when it happens again, and again - never quite in the same way of course, and not on the 6 million scale we can't stop focusing on. That's when the narrative of one ordinary life becomes essential again, as a reminder that decency is frail and wars will continually make monsters. The middle third of the book was extremely uncomfortable to read, it was like being stuck down the dark alley of an ugly nightmare, you want nothing more than to just wake up.
Most of the women once settled into the stone warehouse that is now their new home try all so hard to just shut down and dislocate themselves from their own bodies. Nobody wants to talk of what goes on elsewhere in the camp, things have been heard they would rather forget, as Drakulic dissects the terrible resilience of the human mind. One can bear anything if one is not quite present and hovers in the shallows of the moment. Drakulic writes in the present tense (the hospital) from S.'s point of view. That approach presents her with the problem of how to combine the story of a woman who can't afford memory or self-consciousness with a reflection on the savage experience she undergoes; she solves this by fusing her logical consciousness with S.'s numbed condition. Cleverly using an indirect third-person narrative whilst in the camp allows the writer to achieve the psychic distance necessary to meditate on the meanings of incomprehensible brutality.
The novel may come to a close with some sort of hope, as S. in tears, moves her babyboy onto her breast for a feed, but it was tremendously sad to see a mother turn away in disgust from her newborn child, this living, breathing, small and fragile neonate who had just entered the world had done nothing wrong, and has no say, only asking to be loved. Will the boy need the truth later in life about his conception? - or just a fictional story about the kind of decent regular father so many other war orphans lost.
I have to admit, had I not read many other powerful and haunting books on the horrors of civilians trapped in war, I might have struggled to get through the worst bits. It chilled my blood in it's portrayal of humanity's darkest side. However, I will likely remember this novel more for the small humane acts of kindness and courage shown. They may only have been little things, but seemed huge in the context of the story.
November 25, 2017
This was the first Drakulic I read, and at the time, I felt incapable of writing a review, although I consider it both very well written as a novel and immensely important as a historical reflection on the routine of rape during wars.
There was a double reason why I could not put into words what I thought. First of all, I struggled with the closeness of the atrocious events: both in a geographical and historical sense. This book took me to a war in Europe during my own lifetime, my teenage years, and it contained the whole spectrum of innocent civilians suffering that I can hardly bear to witness from a distance when reading about World War Two, for example. The graphic description of rape, and the information that there had been a routine of holding women hostage to use them as sexual slaves, not that far away from where I spent my safe adolescence, made a strong impact on me, stronger than I had expected. Now, when the book is not haunting me as vividly anymore, I find myself in the position to reflect on it more calmly and to appreciate the important message about the incredible vulnerability of women in unstable societies.
The other reason why I had trouble with reviewing was that I felt I could not place the author properly. The topic was so extreme, the suffering described so harsh - I could not imagine what her writing would look like if she chose a different subject.
Then a while ago, I read , and was completely surprised by the wit and almost silly sense of humour displayed in the excellent short story collection. I would never have expected to pick up a book by Drakulic and actually have a good, lighthearted laugh, not after my first encounter with her. In a way, that humorous approach to Communist rule made the pain of "As if I Am Not There" even more tangible.
Both books however are similar in the way they describe how people suffer from an oppressive system that they can't escape, either during a war or within a totalitarian political system. They also show a variety of different characters reacting to the system, using their individual survival skills.
So I thought that might be the "recipe" to Drakulic' writing. But then I started to read , and I was again taken by surprise - being catapulted into a brilliant opening, describing a sculptress' creation of a female marble body as an introduction to a dark inner journey to get to terms with her mother and her sexuality. It feels like it is - again - an entirely new author I am trying out. What a versatile storyteller!
I will continue to think about "As If I Am Not There" for a while, but the contrast to the other novels gave it even more depth, pain and acute relevance than it had when I first stumbled upon it.
And I am curious to try the rest of Slavenka Drakulic' oeuvre as well, now definitely expecting to be surprised (if I may say so, well knowing that it is an oxymoron, kind of...).
There was a double reason why I could not put into words what I thought. First of all, I struggled with the closeness of the atrocious events: both in a geographical and historical sense. This book took me to a war in Europe during my own lifetime, my teenage years, and it contained the whole spectrum of innocent civilians suffering that I can hardly bear to witness from a distance when reading about World War Two, for example. The graphic description of rape, and the information that there had been a routine of holding women hostage to use them as sexual slaves, not that far away from where I spent my safe adolescence, made a strong impact on me, stronger than I had expected. Now, when the book is not haunting me as vividly anymore, I find myself in the position to reflect on it more calmly and to appreciate the important message about the incredible vulnerability of women in unstable societies.
The other reason why I had trouble with reviewing was that I felt I could not place the author properly. The topic was so extreme, the suffering described so harsh - I could not imagine what her writing would look like if she chose a different subject.
Then a while ago, I read , and was completely surprised by the wit and almost silly sense of humour displayed in the excellent short story collection. I would never have expected to pick up a book by Drakulic and actually have a good, lighthearted laugh, not after my first encounter with her. In a way, that humorous approach to Communist rule made the pain of "As if I Am Not There" even more tangible.
Both books however are similar in the way they describe how people suffer from an oppressive system that they can't escape, either during a war or within a totalitarian political system. They also show a variety of different characters reacting to the system, using their individual survival skills.
So I thought that might be the "recipe" to Drakulic' writing. But then I started to read , and I was again taken by surprise - being catapulted into a brilliant opening, describing a sculptress' creation of a female marble body as an introduction to a dark inner journey to get to terms with her mother and her sexuality. It feels like it is - again - an entirely new author I am trying out. What a versatile storyteller!
I will continue to think about "As If I Am Not There" for a while, but the contrast to the other novels gave it even more depth, pain and acute relevance than it had when I first stumbled upon it.
And I am curious to try the rest of Slavenka Drakulic' oeuvre as well, now definitely expecting to be surprised (if I may say so, well knowing that it is an oxymoron, kind of...).
September 10, 2012
When your country is at war with another, or perhaps many others, you are aware of the risk to human life. You know soldiers will die, you know that some of these may be people you know or even your loved ones. But, though the civilians at home worry about those who are away fighting for their country, they rarely see themselves as part of the war. The threat to them seems far away, almost unreal. So when the occupying forces marched into the Bosnian village where S. lived, her immediate reaction is not of panic. She is mildly annoyed for having been woken up, but she still has faith in the human capacity for reason and she believes that if she surrenders her jewellry and valuables without making a fuss, then no one will do her any harm. In other words, she is naive.
The civilians are captured and taken away to work camps, one for men and one for women. But deep within the female camp is the room that every prisoner dreads - the women's room. A room where women become objects to be used by the soldiers, a room of pain and despair where all hope dies and a person is forced to become empty. Being empty in your mind, abandoning your body at will, this is the only way to survive. Drakulic shows the extent of human depravity in one of the most disturbing accounts of captivity during wartime. Her use of the first letter in place of the women's names is important in understanding the ability to dehumanize the enemy, they become things and not people. It is repulsive, scary and sad.
But the author, in my opinion, never slips over into the gratuitous because her focus is on S.'s inner turmoil. It is not just about the sexual abuse, the beatings and cruelty, it's about the effect this has on the victims, how they retreat inside themselves and the lengths they go to in order to keep their sanity in a world gone mad. Not only that, but she even looks at what it's like to be a soldier blindly following orders, dehumanizing yourself to find the ability to commit atrocities during war. It's easy to have enemies and it's easy to hate, but what does it take to make you someone who can torture another human being? What must they become in your mind? What must you become?
When showing the crimes men commit towards women, when showing a group of male soldiers laughing at a woman's pain, it becomes so easy to delve into misandry. You hate the Serbian soldiers, you hate the things they do to the women. But this is only partly a gender issue. Drakulic wants to tell the many untold stories of women during the Bosnian war (there are an estimated 60,000+ rape victims), she wants us to know about the suffering they faced because of their gender. But, for the author, humanity has one common enemy regardless of your race, religion or gender... and that is war. War makes us all something other than human, it allows those with the power to become monstrous and it allows those without it to be seen as vermin.
Though the author chose to focus on the Bosnian war and particularly the way women were treated during this war, the backbone of this story is universally applicable. She expertly tells a story about some of the vilest, most horrific things that can happen to a human being, she captures humanity at it's best and worst, showing exactly what we are capable of - both the good and the bad.
The civilians are captured and taken away to work camps, one for men and one for women. But deep within the female camp is the room that every prisoner dreads - the women's room. A room where women become objects to be used by the soldiers, a room of pain and despair where all hope dies and a person is forced to become empty. Being empty in your mind, abandoning your body at will, this is the only way to survive. Drakulic shows the extent of human depravity in one of the most disturbing accounts of captivity during wartime. Her use of the first letter in place of the women's names is important in understanding the ability to dehumanize the enemy, they become things and not people. It is repulsive, scary and sad.
But the author, in my opinion, never slips over into the gratuitous because her focus is on S.'s inner turmoil. It is not just about the sexual abuse, the beatings and cruelty, it's about the effect this has on the victims, how they retreat inside themselves and the lengths they go to in order to keep their sanity in a world gone mad. Not only that, but she even looks at what it's like to be a soldier blindly following orders, dehumanizing yourself to find the ability to commit atrocities during war. It's easy to have enemies and it's easy to hate, but what does it take to make you someone who can torture another human being? What must they become in your mind? What must you become?
When showing the crimes men commit towards women, when showing a group of male soldiers laughing at a woman's pain, it becomes so easy to delve into misandry. You hate the Serbian soldiers, you hate the things they do to the women. But this is only partly a gender issue. Drakulic wants to tell the many untold stories of women during the Bosnian war (there are an estimated 60,000+ rape victims), she wants us to know about the suffering they faced because of their gender. But, for the author, humanity has one common enemy regardless of your race, religion or gender... and that is war. War makes us all something other than human, it allows those with the power to become monstrous and it allows those without it to be seen as vermin.
Though the author chose to focus on the Bosnian war and particularly the way women were treated during this war, the backbone of this story is universally applicable. She expertly tells a story about some of the vilest, most horrific things that can happen to a human being, she captures humanity at it's best and worst, showing exactly what we are capable of - both the good and the bad.
December 16, 2019
I don’t know why I have read this book at this very time, close to Christmas, it is a devastating book and it is nothing compared to the reality experienced by this woman, which the author will simply call S.
This woman will be deported along with other residents of her village, only to be Bosnian .... This was enough, during the terrible war in the Balkans in 1992, to determine the death of people....
I say immediately, the narration and the events that are reported are strong if not more' than most of the books about holocaust's survivors i have read in the past. I really feel the bowels tightened since I read it, started and finished late at night because I couldn’t quite get away from S’s voice.
Imprisoned together with women and children in a Concentration camp, S. recounts her tragedy as a victim of daily rapes by Serbian soldiers...
Rape and pregnancies, fit just like ethnic cleansing. These women thus become unable to differentiate between the victim and the subjugated; crushed by that power of life and death in the hands of these beasts, who until a few months before were their neighbors, their bakers, electricians ethc... a life in the villages that was once based on sharing and respect, but now devastated by the laws of war.
S., will perhaps, be the only one who will try to see beyond the mechanisms of survival and evil, even if torn apart by these physical sufferings and mental stereotypes in defense of what is indescribable.
S. will come to a real introspection of herself, once she finds out she is pregnant by those orgies of evil and flesh. Not even the luck of being able to be evacuated to Zagreb and then ,herself only, to Stockholm, will change that sense of free fall of heart, and no hope for a new life...
The child is never mentioned initially, if not as a cancer, a disease of war.... but the deep meditation work on herself, and the unscheduled circumstances, such as the carelessness of a nurse who will put her baby on her breast once born ( she wanted to give him in adoption); it will slowly take S. to look at that flesh that is pulsating and living on her chest as a human being. That child...cancer, will then be her salvation and new and positive chance of life despite an unstoppable pain.
( these are real facts, lived and happened to thousands of women in the Balkans, whether Serbs, Bosnians or Croats...I voluntarily left aside real facts of sexual violence described against children)
Io non so perchè ho letto questo libro proprio in questo periodo, a ridosso del Natale, è un libro devastante ed è niente in confronto alla realtà vissuta da questa donna, che l'autrice chiamerà semplicemente S.
Questa donna verrà deportata insieme ad altri abitanti del suo villaggio, unicamente per essere bosniaca con padre musulmano.... bastava questo, durante la tremenda guerra nei balcani del 1992, per determinare la morte delle persone.....
Dico subito, la narrazione e le vicende ivi riportare sono forti se non piu' rispetto alla maggior parte dei libri dei sopravvissuti all' olocausto . Mi sento veramente le viscere strette da quando l' ho letto, iniziato e terminato a tarda notte perchè non riuscivo assolutamente a staccarmi dalla voce di S.
Rinchiusa insieme a donne e bambini in un campo di prigionia, S. racconta la sua tragedia di donna vittima di stupri di gruppo quotidiani da parte dei soldati serbi....
Lo stupro e le relative gravidanze, atte proprio come pulizia etnica. Queste donne diventano quindi incapaci di differenziare la vittima dal soggiogato. Schiacciate da quel potere di vita e morte nelle mani di queste bestie, che sino a pochi mesi prima erano i loro vicini di casa, i loro panettieri, elettricisti etcc....una vita nei villaggi che un tempo era basata sulla condivisione e il rispetto, ma ora devastata dalle leggi della guerra.
S, sarà forse l'unica che cercherà di vedere oltre ai meccanismi di sopravvivenza e di male, anche se dilaniata da queste sofferenze fisiche e stereotipie mentali atti a difesa da ciò che è indescrivibile.
S. arriverà ad una vera introspezione di se stessa, una volta scoperto di essere incinta da quelle orgie di male e carne. Neanche la fortuna di riuscire ad essere tutti evacuati a Zagabria e poi unicamente lei sino a Stoccolma, modificherà quel senso di caduta libera del cuore, di speranza di una vita nuova....
Il bambino non viene mai citato inizialmente, se non come un cancro, una malattia della guerra..... ma il lavoro di riflessione su se stessa, e le circostanze non programmate, come la sbadataggine di una infermiera che le metterà il piccolo sul petto una volta nato; la porteranno pian piano a guardare quella carne pulsante e vivente come un essere umano. Quel bambino...il cancro, sarà poi la sua salvezza e possibilità di vita nonostante un dolore inarrestabile
( questi sono fatti veri, vissuti e accaduti a migliaia di donne nei balcani, che fossero serbe, bosniache o croate......ho volontariamente lasciato da parte fatti veri di violente sessuali descritte nei confronti dei bambini)
This woman will be deported along with other residents of her village, only to be Bosnian .... This was enough, during the terrible war in the Balkans in 1992, to determine the death of people....
I say immediately, the narration and the events that are reported are strong if not more' than most of the books about holocaust's survivors i have read in the past. I really feel the bowels tightened since I read it, started and finished late at night because I couldn’t quite get away from S’s voice.
Imprisoned together with women and children in a Concentration camp, S. recounts her tragedy as a victim of daily rapes by Serbian soldiers...
Rape and pregnancies, fit just like ethnic cleansing. These women thus become unable to differentiate between the victim and the subjugated; crushed by that power of life and death in the hands of these beasts, who until a few months before were their neighbors, their bakers, electricians ethc... a life in the villages that was once based on sharing and respect, but now devastated by the laws of war.
S., will perhaps, be the only one who will try to see beyond the mechanisms of survival and evil, even if torn apart by these physical sufferings and mental stereotypes in defense of what is indescribable.
S. will come to a real introspection of herself, once she finds out she is pregnant by those orgies of evil and flesh. Not even the luck of being able to be evacuated to Zagreb and then ,herself only, to Stockholm, will change that sense of free fall of heart, and no hope for a new life...
The child is never mentioned initially, if not as a cancer, a disease of war.... but the deep meditation work on herself, and the unscheduled circumstances, such as the carelessness of a nurse who will put her baby on her breast once born ( she wanted to give him in adoption); it will slowly take S. to look at that flesh that is pulsating and living on her chest as a human being. That child...cancer, will then be her salvation and new and positive chance of life despite an unstoppable pain.
( these are real facts, lived and happened to thousands of women in the Balkans, whether Serbs, Bosnians or Croats...I voluntarily left aside real facts of sexual violence described against children)
Io non so perchè ho letto questo libro proprio in questo periodo, a ridosso del Natale, è un libro devastante ed è niente in confronto alla realtà vissuta da questa donna, che l'autrice chiamerà semplicemente S.
Questa donna verrà deportata insieme ad altri abitanti del suo villaggio, unicamente per essere bosniaca con padre musulmano.... bastava questo, durante la tremenda guerra nei balcani del 1992, per determinare la morte delle persone.....
Dico subito, la narrazione e le vicende ivi riportare sono forti se non piu' rispetto alla maggior parte dei libri dei sopravvissuti all' olocausto . Mi sento veramente le viscere strette da quando l' ho letto, iniziato e terminato a tarda notte perchè non riuscivo assolutamente a staccarmi dalla voce di S.
Rinchiusa insieme a donne e bambini in un campo di prigionia, S. racconta la sua tragedia di donna vittima di stupri di gruppo quotidiani da parte dei soldati serbi....
Lo stupro e le relative gravidanze, atte proprio come pulizia etnica. Queste donne diventano quindi incapaci di differenziare la vittima dal soggiogato. Schiacciate da quel potere di vita e morte nelle mani di queste bestie, che sino a pochi mesi prima erano i loro vicini di casa, i loro panettieri, elettricisti etcc....una vita nei villaggi che un tempo era basata sulla condivisione e il rispetto, ma ora devastata dalle leggi della guerra.
S, sarà forse l'unica che cercherà di vedere oltre ai meccanismi di sopravvivenza e di male, anche se dilaniata da queste sofferenze fisiche e stereotipie mentali atti a difesa da ciò che è indescrivibile.
S. arriverà ad una vera introspezione di se stessa, una volta scoperto di essere incinta da quelle orgie di male e carne. Neanche la fortuna di riuscire ad essere tutti evacuati a Zagabria e poi unicamente lei sino a Stoccolma, modificherà quel senso di caduta libera del cuore, di speranza di una vita nuova....
Il bambino non viene mai citato inizialmente, se non come un cancro, una malattia della guerra..... ma il lavoro di riflessione su se stessa, e le circostanze non programmate, come la sbadataggine di una infermiera che le metterà il piccolo sul petto una volta nato; la porteranno pian piano a guardare quella carne pulsante e vivente come un essere umano. Quel bambino...il cancro, sarà poi la sua salvezza e possibilità di vita nonostante un dolore inarrestabile
( questi sono fatti veri, vissuti e accaduti a migliaia di donne nei balcani, che fossero serbe, bosniache o croate......ho volontariamente lasciato da parte fatti veri di violente sessuali descritte nei confronti dei bambini)
February 9, 2021
"Is it good to remember or is it easier to survive if you forget you ever lived a normal life?"
Croatian journalist Slavenka Drakulic wrote this simplistic but powerful story inspired by the personal accounts of various Bosnian Muslim civilian women and their horrific experiences during the Bosnian War in the 1990s. Told in 3rd person, atrocities to these women, such as rape and torture by the soldiers guarding them in order to humiliate and degrade them, are graphically depicted. The author explains why she chose to refer to the main character (and other women) by their first initials.
This story reminded me somewhat of by Ellen Keith, but the experiences in the "women's room" (aka brothel) revealed in this book were much more disturbing to me. The ending was extremely powerful ("... if he has forgotten her, his victim, then she must not forget him or her own past. Their murderers need to forget, but their victims must not let them.")
It's unfathomable that such horrific events, this lack of humanity, still occur to this day. This book is a MUST READ!
Croatian journalist Slavenka Drakulic wrote this simplistic but powerful story inspired by the personal accounts of various Bosnian Muslim civilian women and their horrific experiences during the Bosnian War in the 1990s. Told in 3rd person, atrocities to these women, such as rape and torture by the soldiers guarding them in order to humiliate and degrade them, are graphically depicted. The author explains why she chose to refer to the main character (and other women) by their first initials.
This story reminded me somewhat of by Ellen Keith, but the experiences in the "women's room" (aka brothel) revealed in this book were much more disturbing to me. The ending was extremely powerful ("... if he has forgotten her, his victim, then she must not forget him or her own past. Their murderers need to forget, but their victims must not let them.")
It's unfathomable that such horrific events, this lack of humanity, still occur to this day. This book is a MUST READ!
December 20, 2022
যে কো� যুদ্ধে সবার প্রথমে যে “সত্য� খু� হয� � জ্ঞা� তো আমরা হেরোডটাস, থুসিদিদে�, জেনোফোনদের হা� ধর� কয়ে� হাজা� বছ� আগেই পেয়� গেছি� যুদ্ধে আধিপত্� বিস্তা� করতে হল� আপনাকে উন্ন� অস্ত্র বানাতে হব�, শক্তিশালী সামরিক বহ� গড়ত� হব�, নিশ্ছিদ্� বূহ্� সাজাতে হব�, সত্যকে খু� করতে জানত� হব�, আর…আ�? আর একটি উপকর� আছ�, যেটি অনুচ্চারিত রয়ে যায়, যুদ্� জেতা� কৌশলের কো� হ্যান্ডবুক� তা� উল্লেখ থাকেনা, কিন্তু প্রতিট� যুদ্ধে� প্রেজেন্� ইন্ডেফিনিট টেন্সে� চিরন্ত� সত্যের উদাহরণের মত� অনিবার্যভাবে ব্যবহৃ� হয়ঃ ধর্ষণ। যুদ্ধে� মূ� উদ্দেশ্য ক্ষমতা� প্রদর্শন; যুদ্ধে নেতৃত্� দেয়� ব্যক্তিটির পেশীটি কতখানি মাংস�, শিশ্নট� কতখানি বড� তা� সংবাদই যুদ্ধে� বরাত� আমরা পাই। যুদ্� ব্যাপারট� যেহেতু পুরুষপ্রধা�, যুদ্ধে� সাথে ধর্ষ� তা� হাতে হা� ধর� আসে। যুদ্ধে সত্য খু� হয� সবার আগ� বট�, তব� যুদ্ধে� সবচেয়� বড� শিকা� আসলে নারী�
বাঙলাদেশের স্বাধীনতার মাহাত্ন্� বোঝাতে আমরা কথায� কথায� একটি মুখস্থ বুলি আউড়াই, “২ লক্ষ মা-বোনে� সম্ভ্রমে� বিনিময়ে � দে� স্বাধী� করেছ� আমরা”। “সম্ভ্রম� কোথায় থাকে? কি হয� এই সম্ভ্র� হারালে? সম্ভ্র� হারাবা� পর এই নারীরা কোথায় যায়? কেমন জীবন কাটাতে হয� তাঁদের? তাঁদের মানসিক অবস্থাটা� বা কেমন থাকে? � প্রশ্নগুলো নিয়� আমরা খু� একটা ভাবিনা� আমাদের কাছে সংখ্যাটা� বড� হয়ে দেখা দেয়, সেটাকে� মোটা দাগে দাগিয়� আমরা বিজ্ঞাপি� কর� নিজেদে� স্বাধীনতাকে। � লক্ষ না হয়ে যদ� শুধু � জন নারী ধর্ষিত হতেন, তাহল� আমরা হয়ত� সে� তথ্যটা আদ� আমাদের স্বাধীনত� সংগ্রামে� বিজ্ঞাপন� আনতামই না� � লক্ষ হো�, কিংব� �, সারাজীবনের জন্য মানসিকভাবে ছিন্নভিন্ন হয়ে যাওয়া এই নারীদে� প্রত্যেককে ব্যক্তিগতভাব� যে যাতন� পোহাতে হয়েছে, তা� মাত্রাটা বাইরের কারো পক্ষেই আন্দাজ কর� সম্ভ� নয়। ব্যাপকতা� দি� দিয়� � লক্ষ অনেক বড� একটি সংখ্যা, কিন্তু যন্ত্রণা� প্রেক্ষিতে � আর � লক্ষ সমান সমান�
ইউগোস্লাভিয়ার পতনে� পর ১৯৯১ সালে স্লোভেনিয়� এব� ক্রোয়েশিয়া যখ� ইউগোস্লাভিয়� থেকে বেরিয়� এস� নি� নি� স্বাধীনত� ঘোষণ� কর�, তখ� বসনিয়�-হার্জেগোভিনা� মুসলমানেরা� ভোটাভুটি কর� নিজেদে� জন্য একটি আলাদ� দেশে� প্রস্তাব উত্থাপ� করে। বসনিয়ায� বা� কর� খ্রীষ্টা� সার্বর� এত� আতঙ্কি� হয়ে ভীষণভাবে প্রতিবাদ শুরু করে। তারা� নিজেদে� একটি আলাদ� সংবিধা� রচনা করে। ঐতিহাসিকভাবে� মুসলমা� সংখ্যাগরিষ্ঠ বসনিয়াত� মুসলমা�-খ্রীষ্টানে ঠোকাঠুকি চল� আসছিলো প্রায় ৭০� বছ� ধরে। মার্শা� টিটো সমাজতান্ত্রি� ইউগোস্লাভিয়� গঠ� কর� বে� শক্ত হাতে এই ঠোকাঠুকি অনেকটা� দমিয়ে এনেছিলেন, তাঁর মৃত্যু� পর ধর্মীয় সাম্প্রদায়িকয়তার বোতল বন্দী দৈত্� আবার� বেরিয়� আসে। ১৯৯২-এর ২৯ ফেব্রুয়ার� বসনিয়� স্বাধীনত� ঘোষণ� কর�; মাসখানেক পরেই � এপ্রিল সার্বিয়ার রাষ্ট্রপতি স্লোবোদা� মিলোসেভিচে� আশীর্বা� নিয়� বসনিয়ান সার্বদের নেতা রাদোভা� কারাদচিচ বসনিয়ান মুসলমানদের ওপ� হামল� কর� বসেন, শুরু হয়ে যায় � বছ� মেয়াদী বসনীয় যুদ্ধ।
বসনিয়ান মুসলমা� বা বসনিয়াকদে� মানসিকভাবে ভেঙে দিতে সার্বর� ধর্ষণে� এক মহোৎসব� নামে� জায়গায় জায়গায় ধর্ষণে� ক্যাম্� বানিয়� বন্দী নারীদে� ওপ� চল� দিনরাত নির্যাতন� মাতা� সার্� সৈনিকেরা ইচ্ছেমতো সময়� এস� যাকে পছন্� হয়েছে টেনে নিয়� গেছে নিজেদে� ঘরে। কিশোরী থেকে বৃদ্ধা-১২ থেকে ৭০-কেউই ছাড় পায়নি� গবেষকেরা আজ বসনিয়ায� ধর্ষিত নারীদে� সংখ্যা ২০ হাজা� থেকে ৫০ হাজা� পর্যন্� ধারণ� করেন� সংখ্যা� ব্যাপকতা� বিহবলতায� আমরা জানত� পাইন� বা চাইন� কিভাবে সে নারীরা এই ক্যাম্পগুলোত� দি� কাটিয়েছেন� কি চলেছ� তাঁদের মনে। ক্রোয়েশিয়া� সাংবাদিক স্লাভেঙ্কা দ্রাকুলি� এই ক্যাম্� বন্দী হতভাগ্� নারীদে� গল্প� আমাদের শুনিয়েছেন তাঁর “এ�.� উপন্যাসে�
“এ�.� উপন্যাসে� নামচরিত্� “এস”। এস কে? সাফিয়�? সায়রা? সেলম�? আমরা জানত� পা� না� যেমন জানত� পাইন� “এস�-এর বান্ধবী “এন�, “এল� দে� নামও� তাদে� একটা� পরিচিতিঃ ধর্ষ� ক্যাম্পে� বন্দী তারা, ঘন্টায� ঘন্টায� যাদে� ডা� পড়ে সৈনিকদের ঘরে। ক্যাম্পে আসবা� আগ� এর� কে� নার্� ছিলো, কে� ছিলো শিক্ষক, গৃহিণী� ছিলো অনেকেই� এখ� আর কারো কো� আলাদ� পদমর্যাদ� নে�; সবাই সবার সামন� একইরকম নগ্ন� সবাই এর� জানে কা� সাথে কি হয়েছে� প্রত� সকালেই সার্� সৈনিকেরা এদের সবাইকে মাঠে একসাথে বসিয়ে প্রাতঃকৃত্� সারত� বাধ্� করে। পশুর মত� অবস্থায় থাকত� থাকত� কি “এস”দের সব মানবিকতা� লো� পাবে? তারা কি কেবল� লালস� মেটাবা� বো�-বুদ্ধিহী� বস্তুত� পরিণ� হব�? দিনে� পর দিনে� পর দি� ধর্ষণে� ফল� যে অনাকাঙ্ক্ষিত গর্ভধারণের ভেতর দিয়� যেতে হয� এদের অনেককে�, তারা কি করবে এই সন্তানদে� নিয়�? সার্� সৈনিকদের এই সন্তানদে� কি জন্মের পরপর� মাটিতে আছড়� মেরে কি না� টিপে শ্বাসরোধ কর� ক্যাম্পে� বন্দীরা তাদে� অক্ষ� প্রতিশোধস্পৃহা চরিতার্থ করবে? গোটা উপন্যা� জুড়� দ্রাকুলি� এই প্রশ্নগুলোরই উত্ত� খুঁজ� বেড়িয়েছেন।
দ্রাকুলি� নিজে ক্রোয়েশিয়া�, প্রতিবেশী বসনিয়ান নারীদে� দুর্ভো� খু� কা� থেকে দেখেছে�, সাংবাদিক হিসেবে বসনীয় যুদ্ধে� ওপ� প্রতিবেদ� লিখেছে�, তা� তাঁর বয়া� প্রাসঙ্গিক� উপন্যা� হিসেবে “এস� খু� সুখপাঠ্য নয�, বে� অনেকটা� পত্রিকার রিপোর্টে� ধাঁচ� লেখা, তবুও এট� বসনীয় যুদ্ধে� একটি গুরুত্বপূর্ণ দলিল� দ্রাকুলি� বসনীয় যুদ্ধে� টুকর� টুকর� ভয়াবহতা� কথ� দেখিয়েছেন তাঁর উপন্যাসে; ধর্ষ�-শিবিরে জন্ম নেয়� বহ� শিশুকে জন্মের পরপর� তাদে� হতভাগ্� মায়ের� প্রব� ঘৃণায় হত্য� করেছ�, সার্বর� বসনীয় পিতাদে� বাধ্� করেছ� সবার সামন� আপ� আপ� কিশো� বয়েসী পুত্রদের ধর্ষ� করতে� হয� নি� পুত্রক� ধর্ষ� করতে হব�, নয� বন্দুকের গুলি-এম� বিকৃ� বিকল্পের সম্মুখী� হয়ে বহ� বহ� পরিবার চিরদিনের জন্য মানসিকভাবে পক্ষাঘাতগ্রস্ত হয়ে গেছে� এই ক্যাটাটোনিয়� থেকে মুক্তি� উপায� কি কারো� জানা নেই। যুদ্� � নারী� গল্পগুলো আসলে এক�; দে� কা� জা� ভেদে এক� ঘটনা� ঘট� চল� শতাব্দী� পর শতাব্দী ধরে। বসনীয় যুদ্ধে� সার্�, দ্বিতীয় বিশ্বযুদ্ধের নাৎজ�, নানকিং-এর জাপানী বাহিনী, ১৯৭১-এর পাকিস্তানী হানাদার� এর� সবাই এক� অপরে� অবতা� মাত্র। স্থা�, কা�, আর চরিত্রগুলো ঢেকে দিলে কে যে কে তা আর ঠাহর কর� যায় না�
যুদ্ধে� বরাত� নতুন নতুন প্রযুক্ত� আস�, মানুষে� গতিবিধ� জানবার আর পাইকারী হারে খু� করবা� এক একটা অস্ত্র গবেষণাগারে বিপু� বেগে তৈরী হত� থাকে� যুদ্� শে� হয়��� গেলে সে� প্রযুক্তির নতুন অন্য কো� ব্যবহা� সভ্যতাকে নতুন উচ্চতায় নিয়� যায়� চিরবিষণ্� “এস”র� সে� সভ্যতা� বুকে দগদগ� এক ঘা�
বাঙলাদেশের স্বাধীনতার মাহাত্ন্� বোঝাতে আমরা কথায� কথায� একটি মুখস্থ বুলি আউড়াই, “২ লক্ষ মা-বোনে� সম্ভ্রমে� বিনিময়ে � দে� স্বাধী� করেছ� আমরা”। “সম্ভ্রম� কোথায় থাকে? কি হয� এই সম্ভ্র� হারালে? সম্ভ্র� হারাবা� পর এই নারীরা কোথায় যায়? কেমন জীবন কাটাতে হয� তাঁদের? তাঁদের মানসিক অবস্থাটা� বা কেমন থাকে? � প্রশ্নগুলো নিয়� আমরা খু� একটা ভাবিনা� আমাদের কাছে সংখ্যাটা� বড� হয়ে দেখা দেয়, সেটাকে� মোটা দাগে দাগিয়� আমরা বিজ্ঞাপি� কর� নিজেদে� স্বাধীনতাকে। � লক্ষ না হয়ে যদ� শুধু � জন নারী ধর্ষিত হতেন, তাহল� আমরা হয়ত� সে� তথ্যটা আদ� আমাদের স্বাধীনত� সংগ্রামে� বিজ্ঞাপন� আনতামই না� � লক্ষ হো�, কিংব� �, সারাজীবনের জন্য মানসিকভাবে ছিন্নভিন্ন হয়ে যাওয়া এই নারীদে� প্রত্যেককে ব্যক্তিগতভাব� যে যাতন� পোহাতে হয়েছে, তা� মাত্রাটা বাইরের কারো পক্ষেই আন্দাজ কর� সম্ভ� নয়। ব্যাপকতা� দি� দিয়� � লক্ষ অনেক বড� একটি সংখ্যা, কিন্তু যন্ত্রণা� প্রেক্ষিতে � আর � লক্ষ সমান সমান�
ইউগোস্লাভিয়ার পতনে� পর ১৯৯১ সালে স্লোভেনিয়� এব� ক্রোয়েশিয়া যখ� ইউগোস্লাভিয়� থেকে বেরিয়� এস� নি� নি� স্বাধীনত� ঘোষণ� কর�, তখ� বসনিয়�-হার্জেগোভিনা� মুসলমানেরা� ভোটাভুটি কর� নিজেদে� জন্য একটি আলাদ� দেশে� প্রস্তাব উত্থাপ� করে। বসনিয়ায� বা� কর� খ্রীষ্টা� সার্বর� এত� আতঙ্কি� হয়ে ভীষণভাবে প্রতিবাদ শুরু করে। তারা� নিজেদে� একটি আলাদ� সংবিধা� রচনা করে। ঐতিহাসিকভাবে� মুসলমা� সংখ্যাগরিষ্ঠ বসনিয়াত� মুসলমা�-খ্রীষ্টানে ঠোকাঠুকি চল� আসছিলো প্রায় ৭০� বছ� ধরে। মার্শা� টিটো সমাজতান্ত্রি� ইউগোস্লাভিয়� গঠ� কর� বে� শক্ত হাতে এই ঠোকাঠুকি অনেকটা� দমিয়ে এনেছিলেন, তাঁর মৃত্যু� পর ধর্মীয় সাম্প্রদায়িকয়তার বোতল বন্দী দৈত্� আবার� বেরিয়� আসে। ১৯৯২-এর ২৯ ফেব্রুয়ার� বসনিয়� স্বাধীনত� ঘোষণ� কর�; মাসখানেক পরেই � এপ্রিল সার্বিয়ার রাষ্ট্রপতি স্লোবোদা� মিলোসেভিচে� আশীর্বা� নিয়� বসনিয়ান সার্বদের নেতা রাদোভা� কারাদচিচ বসনিয়ান মুসলমানদের ওপ� হামল� কর� বসেন, শুরু হয়ে যায় � বছ� মেয়াদী বসনীয় যুদ্ধ।
বসনিয়ান মুসলমা� বা বসনিয়াকদে� মানসিকভাবে ভেঙে দিতে সার্বর� ধর্ষণে� এক মহোৎসব� নামে� জায়গায় জায়গায় ধর্ষণে� ক্যাম্� বানিয়� বন্দী নারীদে� ওপ� চল� দিনরাত নির্যাতন� মাতা� সার্� সৈনিকেরা ইচ্ছেমতো সময়� এস� যাকে পছন্� হয়েছে টেনে নিয়� গেছে নিজেদে� ঘরে। কিশোরী থেকে বৃদ্ধা-১২ থেকে ৭০-কেউই ছাড় পায়নি� গবেষকেরা আজ বসনিয়ায� ধর্ষিত নারীদে� সংখ্যা ২০ হাজা� থেকে ৫০ হাজা� পর্যন্� ধারণ� করেন� সংখ্যা� ব্যাপকতা� বিহবলতায� আমরা জানত� পাইন� বা চাইন� কিভাবে সে নারীরা এই ক্যাম্পগুলোত� দি� কাটিয়েছেন� কি চলেছ� তাঁদের মনে। ক্রোয়েশিয়া� সাংবাদিক স্লাভেঙ্কা দ্রাকুলি� এই ক্যাম্� বন্দী হতভাগ্� নারীদে� গল্প� আমাদের শুনিয়েছেন তাঁর “এ�.� উপন্যাসে�
“এ�.� উপন্যাসে� নামচরিত্� “এস”। এস কে? সাফিয়�? সায়রা? সেলম�? আমরা জানত� পা� না� যেমন জানত� পাইন� “এস�-এর বান্ধবী “এন�, “এল� দে� নামও� তাদে� একটা� পরিচিতিঃ ধর্ষ� ক্যাম্পে� বন্দী তারা, ঘন্টায� ঘন্টায� যাদে� ডা� পড়ে সৈনিকদের ঘরে। ক্যাম্পে আসবা� আগ� এর� কে� নার্� ছিলো, কে� ছিলো শিক্ষক, গৃহিণী� ছিলো অনেকেই� এখ� আর কারো কো� আলাদ� পদমর্যাদ� নে�; সবাই সবার সামন� একইরকম নগ্ন� সবাই এর� জানে কা� সাথে কি হয়েছে� প্রত� সকালেই সার্� সৈনিকেরা এদের সবাইকে মাঠে একসাথে বসিয়ে প্রাতঃকৃত্� সারত� বাধ্� করে। পশুর মত� অবস্থায় থাকত� থাকত� কি “এস”দের সব মানবিকতা� লো� পাবে? তারা কি কেবল� লালস� মেটাবা� বো�-বুদ্ধিহী� বস্তুত� পরিণ� হব�? দিনে� পর দিনে� পর দি� ধর্ষণে� ফল� যে অনাকাঙ্ক্ষিত গর্ভধারণের ভেতর দিয়� যেতে হয� এদের অনেককে�, তারা কি করবে এই সন্তানদে� নিয়�? সার্� সৈনিকদের এই সন্তানদে� কি জন্মের পরপর� মাটিতে আছড়� মেরে কি না� টিপে শ্বাসরোধ কর� ক্যাম্পে� বন্দীরা তাদে� অক্ষ� প্রতিশোধস্পৃহা চরিতার্থ করবে? গোটা উপন্যা� জুড়� দ্রাকুলি� এই প্রশ্নগুলোরই উত্ত� খুঁজ� বেড়িয়েছেন।
দ্রাকুলি� নিজে ক্রোয়েশিয়া�, প্রতিবেশী বসনিয়ান নারীদে� দুর্ভো� খু� কা� থেকে দেখেছে�, সাংবাদিক হিসেবে বসনীয় যুদ্ধে� ওপ� প্রতিবেদ� লিখেছে�, তা� তাঁর বয়া� প্রাসঙ্গিক� উপন্যা� হিসেবে “এস� খু� সুখপাঠ্য নয�, বে� অনেকটা� পত্রিকার রিপোর্টে� ধাঁচ� লেখা, তবুও এট� বসনীয় যুদ্ধে� একটি গুরুত্বপূর্ণ দলিল� দ্রাকুলি� বসনীয় যুদ্ধে� টুকর� টুকর� ভয়াবহতা� কথ� দেখিয়েছেন তাঁর উপন্যাসে; ধর্ষ�-শিবিরে জন্ম নেয়� বহ� শিশুকে জন্মের পরপর� তাদে� হতভাগ্� মায়ের� প্রব� ঘৃণায় হত্য� করেছ�, সার্বর� বসনীয় পিতাদে� বাধ্� করেছ� সবার সামন� আপ� আপ� কিশো� বয়েসী পুত্রদের ধর্ষ� করতে� হয� নি� পুত্রক� ধর্ষ� করতে হব�, নয� বন্দুকের গুলি-এম� বিকৃ� বিকল্পের সম্মুখী� হয়ে বহ� বহ� পরিবার চিরদিনের জন্য মানসিকভাবে পক্ষাঘাতগ্রস্ত হয়ে গেছে� এই ক্যাটাটোনিয়� থেকে মুক্তি� উপায� কি কারো� জানা নেই। যুদ্� � নারী� গল্পগুলো আসলে এক�; দে� কা� জা� ভেদে এক� ঘটনা� ঘট� চল� শতাব্দী� পর শতাব্দী ধরে। বসনীয় যুদ্ধে� সার্�, দ্বিতীয় বিশ্বযুদ্ধের নাৎজ�, নানকিং-এর জাপানী বাহিনী, ১৯৭১-এর পাকিস্তানী হানাদার� এর� সবাই এক� অপরে� অবতা� মাত্র। স্থা�, কা�, আর চরিত্রগুলো ঢেকে দিলে কে যে কে তা আর ঠাহর কর� যায় না�
যুদ্ধে� বরাত� নতুন নতুন প্রযুক্ত� আস�, মানুষে� গতিবিধ� জানবার আর পাইকারী হারে খু� করবা� এক একটা অস্ত্র গবেষণাগারে বিপু� বেগে তৈরী হত� থাকে� যুদ্� শে� হয়��� গেলে সে� প্রযুক্তির নতুন অন্য কো� ব্যবহা� সভ্যতাকে নতুন উচ্চতায় নিয়� যায়� চিরবিষণ্� “এস”র� সে� সভ্যতা� বুকে দগদগ� এক ঘা�
October 9, 2011
Slavenka Drakulic
(born 1949) is a Croatian novelist, sociologist and a journalist who writes mainly on women issues. This is my opening sentence because when I picked up this book, I asked myself: Drakulic, who? and thought that this was a horror book. Hmmm. Drakulic=Dracula. Bosnia=Yugoslavia=Transylvania. Enough, K.D. Stop. Must be the Halloween spirit. This is a serious book.
Very much, indeed. S: A Novel About Balkans a.k.a. As If I Am Not There is about rape, torture, and sexual slavery of Muslim women during the Bosnian War (1992-1995). During that war, the Serbian minority laid siege to Saravejo and began rounding up and massacring Bosnia's Muslim population. Then the Serbian rebels transported the Muslim people into concentration camps and did the atrocities similar to those committed by Hitler in Europe during the holocaust. Taking the scope or extent in terms of number of people aside, the only difference between the two was that the Serbian rebels sexually molested the women including young Muslim girls. German soldiers, unfortunately or fortunately, saw all Jews to be of lower class thus not worth sleeping with and not worth to bear their children. There is a scene in this novel when the Serbian soldiers (yes, most rapes here were done by 2-3 men to one woman) were raping a Muslim woman, one of them said that when the baby comes out, he/she is considered a Serbian which is a higher desired race compared to that of Muslim's. Since, this book is based on personal testimonies of several women who Drakulic interviewed as a journalist for a Croatian newspaper, you would feel that the events are exact and sincere. Being a journalist, however, you would not feel that you are reading a transcript of interviews or a history book. Her prose has no allegory or philosophical musings but her emotion as a writer of women issues was captured emphatically on the flight of these poor marginalized Muslim women.
The protagonist name is simply S., 30-y/o, single and an English teacher at Saravejo when she was cornered and brought to a Bosnian concentration camp. She, together with around 20 other women and some girls as young as 13 years old, were kept in a "woman's room" as sex slaves. This reminded me of the "comfort women" that the Japanese kept during WWII not only here in the Philippines but also in other Asian countries. Those pigs!!! S. and other women, got pregnant. Since they hated all those who raped them (of course), they did not feel any love for the children they nurtured in their wombs. They did not know what to to with the babies lying on their cribs at Stockholm's (they were brought to Sweden when they were saved from Zagreb's concentration camp) hospital. I will not tell you what happened next as it is too much of a spoiler. Suffice it to say that the novel did not just focus on the Serbian atrocities during the war but also in the dilemma of the women who got raped and had to bear the Serbian children. This spin made this a different reading experience compared to the Holocaust novels that I've read and liked so far such as those of Anne Frank's, Ellie Wiesel's or Imre Kertesz's.
This truly deserves its slot in the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die list. No doubt whatsoever.
Very much, indeed. S: A Novel About Balkans a.k.a. As If I Am Not There is about rape, torture, and sexual slavery of Muslim women during the Bosnian War (1992-1995). During that war, the Serbian minority laid siege to Saravejo and began rounding up and massacring Bosnia's Muslim population. Then the Serbian rebels transported the Muslim people into concentration camps and did the atrocities similar to those committed by Hitler in Europe during the holocaust. Taking the scope or extent in terms of number of people aside, the only difference between the two was that the Serbian rebels sexually molested the women including young Muslim girls. German soldiers, unfortunately or fortunately, saw all Jews to be of lower class thus not worth sleeping with and not worth to bear their children. There is a scene in this novel when the Serbian soldiers (yes, most rapes here were done by 2-3 men to one woman) were raping a Muslim woman, one of them said that when the baby comes out, he/she is considered a Serbian which is a higher desired race compared to that of Muslim's. Since, this book is based on personal testimonies of several women who Drakulic interviewed as a journalist for a Croatian newspaper, you would feel that the events are exact and sincere. Being a journalist, however, you would not feel that you are reading a transcript of interviews or a history book. Her prose has no allegory or philosophical musings but her emotion as a writer of women issues was captured emphatically on the flight of these poor marginalized Muslim women.
The protagonist name is simply S., 30-y/o, single and an English teacher at Saravejo when she was cornered and brought to a Bosnian concentration camp. She, together with around 20 other women and some girls as young as 13 years old, were kept in a "woman's room" as sex slaves. This reminded me of the "comfort women" that the Japanese kept during WWII not only here in the Philippines but also in other Asian countries. Those pigs!!! S. and other women, got pregnant. Since they hated all those who raped them (of course), they did not feel any love for the children they nurtured in their wombs. They did not know what to to with the babies lying on their cribs at Stockholm's (they were brought to Sweden when they were saved from Zagreb's concentration camp) hospital. I will not tell you what happened next as it is too much of a spoiler. Suffice it to say that the novel did not just focus on the Serbian atrocities during the war but also in the dilemma of the women who got raped and had to bear the Serbian children. This spin made this a different reading experience compared to the Holocaust novels that I've read and liked so far such as those of Anne Frank's, Ellie Wiesel's or Imre Kertesz's.
This truly deserves its slot in the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die list. No doubt whatsoever.
March 6, 2021
Страшенно болюча книжка, суцільне скло. Назавжди запам'ятаю її, перечитувати більше не зможу...
"У їхніх візитах немає жодного порядку, дівчатам нікуди втекти, ніде сховатися. Дівчат тільки дев'ять, і волею випадку може трапитися так, що котрусь із них солдати щоночі вибирають «для забави», один чи й кілька разів поспіль. Хвороба не виправдання, краще взагалі не згадувати про хворобу, адже це не перешкода солдатам у їхній «забаві». Надвечір кожна здівчат думає одне й те саме: сьогодні вночі моя черга � чи ні?"
"Стоячи під душем у його лазничці, вона щоразу запитує себе, чи й Капітан відчуває той запах інших чоловіків на її шкірі, той смердючий слід, який в'ївся у її тіло? Чи відчуває Капітан їх � тих інших чоловіків? Чи заважае це йому, чи навпаки � тільки збуджує Капітана? Ох, ця їхня єдність у приниженні жінок, це їхне чоловіче братство, коли вони спостерігають один за одним під час статевого акту, - чи все це збуджує чоловіків?"
"Стосунки з Капітаном � підвищення її концтабірного статусу. Тепер С. має виконувати забаганки тільки одного чоловіка. Це справжня перемога для бранки з «жіночої кімнати». Це крок уперед до повернення власної гідності".
"Її тіло лежить на лікарняному ліжку, наче якийсь неживий предмет, спорожнілий мішок, поліетиленова торба. Нічого не змінилося після її від'їзду з концтабору. С. і далі перебуває у владі своїх катів, тепер навіть більше, аніж живучи в «жіночій кімнаті». Лише зараз C. усвідомлює, що жіноче тіло все одно ніколи не належить цілком самій жінці. Воно належить іншим чоловікові, дітям, родині. Під час війни - ворожим солдатам".
"Подарувавши життя книзі «Ніби мене нема (є)», видавництво «Комора» звело меморіал кожній з тих нещасних безіменних замордованих жінок і дівчат, імена яких історія не зберегла. Читаючи її, ви віддаєте шану кожній з тих, хто пережив насильство, свавілля і збезчещеність, кожній, кого було забуто, а кат так і не був покараний. У багатьох з героїнь твору Славенки Дракуліч немає могили чи пам'ятника, але вони оживають на сторінках цієї книги,
розповідаючи свою історію".
Забути не можна говорити
"У їхніх візитах немає жодного порядку, дівчатам нікуди втекти, ніде сховатися. Дівчат тільки дев'ять, і волею випадку може трапитися так, що котрусь із них солдати щоночі вибирають «для забави», один чи й кілька разів поспіль. Хвороба не виправдання, краще взагалі не згадувати про хворобу, адже це не перешкода солдатам у їхній «забаві». Надвечір кожна здівчат думає одне й те саме: сьогодні вночі моя черга � чи ні?"
"Стоячи під душем у його лазничці, вона щоразу запитує себе, чи й Капітан відчуває той запах інших чоловіків на її шкірі, той смердючий слід, який в'ївся у її тіло? Чи відчуває Капітан їх � тих інших чоловіків? Чи заважае це йому, чи навпаки � тільки збуджує Капітана? Ох, ця їхня єдність у приниженні жінок, це їхне чоловіче братство, коли вони спостерігають один за одним під час статевого акту, - чи все це збуджує чоловіків?"
"Стосунки з Капітаном � підвищення її концтабірного статусу. Тепер С. має виконувати забаганки тільки одного чоловіка. Це справжня перемога для бранки з «жіночої кімнати». Це крок уперед до повернення власної гідності".
"Її тіло лежить на лікарняному ліжку, наче якийсь неживий предмет, спорожнілий мішок, поліетиленова торба. Нічого не змінилося після її від'їзду з концтабору. С. і далі перебуває у владі своїх катів, тепер навіть більше, аніж живучи в «жіночій кімнаті». Лише зараз C. усвідомлює, що жіноче тіло все одно ніколи не належить цілком самій жінці. Воно належить іншим чоловікові, дітям, родині. Під час війни - ворожим солдатам".
"Подарувавши життя книзі «Ніби мене нема (є)», видавництво «Комора» звело меморіал кожній з тих нещасних безіменних замордованих жінок і дівчат, імена яких історія не зберегла. Читаючи її, ви віддаєте шану кожній з тих, хто пережив насильство, свавілля і збезчещеність, кожній, кого було забуто, а кат так і не був покараний. У багатьох з героїнь твору Славенки Дракуліч немає могили чи пам'ятника, але вони оживають на сторінках цієї книги,
розповідаючи свою історію".
Забути не можна говорити
August 29, 2022
The abbreviation of a name and the forging of a fiction that feels so much like truth really makes this occupy an emotionally effective liminal space. One which most stories like this don’t typically engender, at least for me. I’m used to be in a macro perspective, completely unable to imagine really, but nevertheless empathize. Here, it manages to be one step further. With the choice of diction and what is on the page, I think there is no question of any of this not happening, yet it has the benefits of fiction as well.
It is the most affecting book on war I’ve ever read. From the very start, only with S. In the hospital, giving birth to a child conceived by sexual assault, it is gripping and truly visceral. A word I do not use unless I mean it, because it’s become far too popularized, imo. It is the right word for this story. You really need to be prepared for all manner of degradation, but also the immense humanization. It doesn’t feel highly dramatized nor formulaic. And yet you do know what will happen next, I think. The amount of granularity and the choice of what to show “on camera� is perfect.
I can’t think of a thing it could have done better. Horrific, too, that every name is abbreviated, because it suggests that it could be absolutely anybody, removing the possible foreign language distance, and maintaining any kind of privacy that might have felt to be impinged upon.
It is the most affecting book on war I’ve ever read. From the very start, only with S. In the hospital, giving birth to a child conceived by sexual assault, it is gripping and truly visceral. A word I do not use unless I mean it, because it’s become far too popularized, imo. It is the right word for this story. You really need to be prepared for all manner of degradation, but also the immense humanization. It doesn’t feel highly dramatized nor formulaic. And yet you do know what will happen next, I think. The amount of granularity and the choice of what to show “on camera� is perfect.
I can’t think of a thing it could have done better. Horrific, too, that every name is abbreviated, because it suggests that it could be absolutely anybody, removing the possible foreign language distance, and maintaining any kind of privacy that might have felt to be impinged upon.
November 14, 2016
Jako, jako, jako teska istinita prica. :( Tesko je dati ocjenu, jer osjecas samo tugu, bijes, nepravdu, zlo, strah, bol... Kako za takve osjecaje dati bilo kakvu ocjenu? No, Slavenka je i ovaj put dosla do srzi cijele price, te ju prikazala bas kakva je i bila - teska! Svaka cast svim zenama i muskarcima koji su uspjeli prezivjeti bilo kakav logor. Jos uvijek sam u soku od opisa sto covjek covjeku moze raditi! :(
February 12, 2024
O livro dá conta da história de S. que é levada juntamente com centenas de outras mulheres para um campo de concentração na Bósnia, em 1992. A descrição do todo é intensa, desmontando em palavras sentires indescritíveis. Obriga-nos a pensar sobre como foi possível, no final do século XX, apenas 50 anos após o Holocausto, repetirmos quase tudo outra vez. Obriga-nos a tentar perceber como é que o fim do Comunismo na Jugoslávia, em 1989, levou à total carnificina. Um país retalhado pela força das diferenças religiosas capazes de sustentar a necessidade de genocídio.
O enfoque do relato é na visão feminina da guerra, negra, horripilante, ainda assim, senti muitas vezes um sentimento estranho, pois não conseguia deixar de pensar que aquilo que estava a ler, passado em 1992, continua a existir ainda por todo o globo. Milhares de mulheres continuam a ser traficadas não apenas em zonas de guerra, mas também em zonas de pobreza, de migração, acabando por passar por experiências tão ou mais duras do que as que são aqui relatadas.
No entanto, o livro não deve ser olhado pela dureza dos incidentes, mas antes pelo modo como nos compele a ir atrás, a querer saber mais sobre aqueles países e sobre o que passaram aquelas populações.
Publicado em
O enfoque do relato é na visão feminina da guerra, negra, horripilante, ainda assim, senti muitas vezes um sentimento estranho, pois não conseguia deixar de pensar que aquilo que estava a ler, passado em 1992, continua a existir ainda por todo o globo. Milhares de mulheres continuam a ser traficadas não apenas em zonas de guerra, mas também em zonas de pobreza, de migração, acabando por passar por experiências tão ou mais duras do que as que são aqui relatadas.
No entanto, o livro não deve ser olhado pela dureza dos incidentes, mas antes pelo modo como nos compele a ir atrás, a querer saber mais sobre aqueles países e sobre o que passaram aquelas populações.
Publicado em
March 18, 2021
"Ніби мене нема(є)" Славенки Дракуліч - новинка "Комори", яку я прямо була готова брати зі заплющеними очима, бо Славенка (навіть не дивлячись на неоднозначну "Кафе "Європа"") все ще дуже якісне і цікаве вікно у світ балканської літератури. У моєму читацькому досвіді "Ніби мене нема(є)" - її перший саме художній твір, хоча, як я розумію, він побудований на реальній історії.
Одразу треба сказати, що цю книгу ніяк не назвеш приємною, хоча текст у ній дуже красивий. Красивий і і невимовно сумний. У центрі історії знаходиться дівчина С., яка вчителювала у боснійському селі, коли туди прийшли серби, перестріляли чоловіків, а жінок вивезли у концтабір. Спочатку С. сподівається на обмін полоненими, але з кожним днем її надія все слабшає і зрештою це стає неважливим.
Авторці дуже пронизливо вдалося зобразити перехід від життя освіченої молодої жінки, яка любить вечірки і наївно бере у концтабір нові італійські туфлі, до існування рабині, з якою можна зробити будь-що і нікому нічого за це не буде.
"С. знає, що цей автобус насправді переселяє їх із однієї реальності до іншої, із одного часу (чи історичної доби) - до іншого".
Її обирають для когорти дівчат, чиїми тілами користуються сербські солдати. Так звана "жіноча кімната". Це постійні зґвалтування, побої, страх і смерті. Хочеться попередити, що у книзі присутні дуже важкі сцени, від яких стає майже фізично боляче.
Славенка лишається вірною собі і намагається знайти відповіді: як? чому? Це ж звичайні люди, ще вчора ви могли зна��и їх, а сьогодні в них зовсім не лишилося жалощів чи хоча б чогось людського. Люди ж бо не палять інших людей в сміттєвих контейнерах.
"С. відразу усвідомлює, що саме в цьому вся суть - у навмисному приниженні людей. Табірні в'язні перестають бути людськими істотами..."
Так само добре зображений і зворотній процес повернення до нормального життя, хоча, не факт, що воно може бути нормальним для С., настільки надламує цей досвід. В одному подкасті про літературу я почула фразу: "Усе що тебе не вбиває, робить тебе травмованим", - і це дуже влучно описує ситуацію.
"С. бачила стільки горя, лиха і смертей, що вона тепер просто не зможе насолоджуватися красою чи знову повірити в доброту".
Ця книга не лише глибоко вразила мене, а й зробила "вразливішою", відкривши купу глибинних страхів. Зазвичай я з задоволенням ділюся книжками із друзями, але цю одну я не хочу давати нікому, занадто інтимним було читання.
Дуже хочеться також згадати перекладачку Ірину Маркову. Їй не тільки вдалося добре зробити свою роботу, вона ще й лишила нам післямову, де кричить буквами - я певна, це крик! - про що ця книга �� навіщо вона. Після всіх свідчень і судів покарані за свою діяльність були одиниці з тисяч.
"Читаючи її, ви віддаєте шану кожній з тих, хто пережив насильство, свавілля і збезчещеність, кожній, кого було забуто, а кат так і не був покараний. Забути не можна говорити".
Виникає великий контраст між рожевою софттач обкладинкою, яка, здавалося б, не віщує біди, і текстом, просякнутим відчаєм і болем. Мої рекомендації.
Одразу треба сказати, що цю книгу ніяк не назвеш приємною, хоча текст у ній дуже красивий. Красивий і і невимовно сумний. У центрі історії знаходиться дівчина С., яка вчителювала у боснійському селі, коли туди прийшли серби, перестріляли чоловіків, а жінок вивезли у концтабір. Спочатку С. сподівається на обмін полоненими, але з кожним днем її надія все слабшає і зрештою це стає неважливим.
Авторці дуже пронизливо вдалося зобразити перехід від життя освіченої молодої жінки, яка любить вечірки і наївно бере у концтабір нові італійські туфлі, до існування рабині, з якою можна зробити будь-що і нікому нічого за це не буде.
"С. знає, що цей автобус насправді переселяє їх із однієї реальності до іншої, із одного часу (чи історичної доби) - до іншого".
Її обирають для когорти дівчат, чиїми тілами користуються сербські солдати. Так звана "жіноча кімната". Це постійні зґвалтування, побої, страх і смерті. Хочеться попередити, що у книзі присутні дуже важкі сцени, від яких стає майже фізично боляче.
Славенка лишається вірною собі і намагається знайти відповіді: як? чому? Це ж звичайні люди, ще вчора ви могли зна��и їх, а сьогодні в них зовсім не лишилося жалощів чи хоча б чогось людського. Люди ж бо не палять інших людей в сміттєвих контейнерах.
"С. відразу усвідомлює, що саме в цьому вся суть - у навмисному приниженні людей. Табірні в'язні перестають бути людськими істотами..."
Так само добре зображений і зворотній процес повернення до нормального життя, хоча, не факт, що воно може бути нормальним для С., настільки надламує цей досвід. В одному подкасті про літературу я почула фразу: "Усе що тебе не вбиває, робить тебе травмованим", - і це дуже влучно описує ситуацію.
"С. бачила стільки горя, лиха і смертей, що вона тепер просто не зможе насолоджуватися красою чи знову повірити в доброту".
Ця книга не лише глибоко вразила мене, а й зробила "вразливішою", відкривши купу глибинних страхів. Зазвичай я з задоволенням ділюся книжками із друзями, але цю одну я не хочу давати нікому, занадто інтимним було читання.
Дуже хочеться також згадати перекладачку Ірину Маркову. Їй не тільки вдалося добре зробити свою роботу, вона ще й лишила нам післямову, де кричить буквами - я певна, це крик! - про що ця книга �� навіщо вона. Після всіх свідчень і судів покарані за свою діяльність були одиниці з тисяч.
"Читаючи її, ви віддаєте шану кожній з тих, хто пережив насильство, свавілля і збезчещеність, кожній, кого було забуто, а кат так і не був покараний. Забути не можна говорити".
Виникає великий контраст між рожевою софттач обкладинкою, яка, здавалося б, не віщує біди, і текстом, просякнутим відчаєм і болем. Мої рекомендації.
March 13, 2021
У війни не жіноче обличчя. Але тіло, безумовно, жіноче.
Тіло, якому будь-який солдат може завдати кривди. Просто тому, що може. Просто тому, що хоче.
Тіло, здатне витримати наругу, ґвалтування, знущання, тортури і виснаження, але здатне також дарувати нове життя навіть у найстрашніші часи.
Тіло, про яке соромно розповідати як про щось назавжди зіпсоване, мертве навіть тоді, коли воно ще живе.
Славенка Дракуліч здійснила титанічну працю, аби розповісти про ці змордовані жіночі тіла, аби повернути їм усе, що загубилось у страхіттях війни. Аби повернути їм голос.
«Ніби мене нема(є)» - про долю боснійських жінок, які потрапили до сербського концтабору, і стали іграшками у руках солдатів. У романі в жінок немає імен - лише ініціали, які ховають їх від сорому пережитого. Але одна з них - вчителька С. - поза книгою таки розкриває своє ім‘�, аби свідчити у Гаазі проти своїх катів. Бо вона, одна з небагатьох, вирішує боротись за те, щоб злочинців було покарано.
Мені не вкладається в голові, як усе, описане в книзі, могло бути правдою. Як усі описані звірства та горе могли відбуватись десь зовсім поруч зі мною, 1-річною дитиною. Мені не вкладається в голові і стає страшно: а десь у світі ж і досі відбувається щось подібне, але жіночі голоси не чують. Напевно, голоси зникають, і лишаються знову самі тіла.
Читати книгу Дракуліч - ятрити серце. Особливо, коли тобі стільки ж років, скільки головній героїні. Особливо, коли у тебе самої росте донька. Але ці сердечні муки, які відчуваєш за час читання, потрібні усім нам: аби змордовані жінки не були забуті, а злочини проти них не повторились ні з ким і ніколи.
Тіло, якому будь-який солдат може завдати кривди. Просто тому, що може. Просто тому, що хоче.
Тіло, здатне витримати наругу, ґвалтування, знущання, тортури і виснаження, але здатне також дарувати нове життя навіть у найстрашніші часи.
Тіло, про яке соромно розповідати як про щось назавжди зіпсоване, мертве навіть тоді, коли воно ще живе.
Славенка Дракуліч здійснила титанічну працю, аби розповісти про ці змордовані жіночі тіла, аби повернути їм усе, що загубилось у страхіттях війни. Аби повернути їм голос.
«Ніби мене нема(є)» - про долю боснійських жінок, які потрапили до сербського концтабору, і стали іграшками у руках солдатів. У романі в жінок немає імен - лише ініціали, які ховають їх від сорому пережитого. Але одна з них - вчителька С. - поза книгою таки розкриває своє ім‘�, аби свідчити у Гаазі проти своїх катів. Бо вона, одна з небагатьох, вирішує боротись за те, щоб злочинців було покарано.
Мені не вкладається в голові, як усе, описане в книзі, могло бути правдою. Як усі описані звірства та горе могли відбуватись десь зовсім поруч зі мною, 1-річною дитиною. Мені не вкладається в голові і стає страшно: а десь у світі ж і досі відбувається щось подібне, але жіночі голоси не чують. Напевно, голоси зникають, і лишаються знову самі тіла.
Читати книгу Дракуліч - ятрити серце. Особливо, коли тобі стільки ж років, скільки головній героїні. Особливо, коли у тебе самої росте донька. Але ці сердечні муки, які відчуваєш за час читання, потрібні усім нам: аби змордовані жінки не були забуті, а злочини проти них не повторились ні з ким і ніколи.
April 13, 2010
My original review (2000) in the San Francisco Chronicle
S. A Novel of the Balkans By Slavenka Drakulic Viking; 216 pages; $22.95
Croatian writer Slavenka Drakulic has given the world a gift, digging into the twisted reality of the war that splintered the former Yugoslavia and emerging with ``S.,'' a searing story about a woman held in a Bosnian concentration camp. It is a haunting, difficult novel that is also somehow redemptive.
In the past, Drakulic has demonstrated in essays such as ``Cafe Europa: Life After Communism'' an inspired knack for unlikely but telling details. She also has a restlessness and a moral imagination that give her work nuance and power and flavor -- this last quality being one she jokes about in the title of her I-loved-him-so- much-I-ate-him novel, ``The Taste of a Man.''
But never has she combined her approach and her subject matter into anything like the cataclysmic power of this new novel, which makes her earlier novels look like secondary-school warmups. Drakulic not only pulls us into the world of this anonymous young woman, a teacher taken away by Serb soldiers along with everyone else in the town she works in, but she does it without manipulation.
``The smell, the smell of dust in the dry air, that is what she will remember,'' begins an early chapter. ``The taste of coffee with too much sugar. The image of women quietly climbing on to the bus, one by one, as if going on an excursion. And the smell of her own sweat.''
Some might call Drakulic's adroit use of sight and sound and fleeting impression manipulative, but when it works as well as this, the criticism seems misplaced.
Drakulic takes us through the succession of horrors endured by S. in such a relaxed manner, it almost seems like travel writing. There is the uncertain young man who comes to take S. away. ``The black nail of his big toe is poking out of his torn cloth sneakers,'' she writes. There is the subdued horror of packing just a few belongings when S. has no idea how long she will be gone or where she's being taken. And there is the power of a good list, such as this one describing the villagers: ``These people are leaving behind uneaten food on the table, unwashed dishes, unfinished work, animals in the barn, radios playing, laundry for ironing, arguments.''
Drakulic keeps her prose orderly and controlled. Simple impression follows simple impression. The cumulative effect makes the reader go from understanding the fracture of Yugoslavia by what was shown on TV to knowing it through benumbing verisimilitude.
Because Drakulic always looks for the small, human moment that can offer respite from horror, the atrocities portrayed never seem gratuitous or polemical. That's saying a lot, given such passages as S. overhearing a ``young voice'' saying: ``I saw three dead girls in a ditch. I knew them from school. They were naked. Their breasts had been cut off. I covered them with leaves.''
The book never drags, and no page stands out as less gripping than the next. But the story rises to another level of horror when S. moves into the ``women's room'' in the concentration camp. Drakulic juxtaposes the ordinary with the extraordinary to make these scenes so powerful:
``S. tries to unbutton her blouse. Three pairs of men's eyes watch her movements as her trembling fingers fail to find the buttons. It is not that she does not want to obey their order. On the contrary, she is in a hurry to do so. At that moment she cannot even think about doing anything else -- but S. no longer controls her fingers.''
What the soldiers do to S., the hows and whys of it, cannot fail to shake loose troubling perspectives on war and what it means. Drakulic could not have written a book this good, this free of cheap effect, if she had rushed herself. She had to spend time mulling over the war, gaining something to serve as ballast, something enabling her to see the truth in a line such as, ``But the soldiers are no longer people either, except that they are less aware of it.''
Despite the dehumanization suffered, Drakulic's main character remains alive on the page, even if she doesn't have an actual name, just a letter, like all the women in the story. ``I'm alive, she thinks, as if this were a secret to be kept for herself.'' Later, ``(s)he jumps, suddenly, as if startled out of a dream.'' And still later, during the unnerving section devoted to S.'s odd liaison with the camp's sad, proper and yet ultimately debauched commander: ``Smells are a dangerous thing, they catapult you back into the past and she is afraid of forgetting where she is. She must focus on the captain.''
Eventually, S. and the others are released from the camp. The psychology of what they face afterward has been explored elsewhere, but even so, Drakulic's take on psychological dislocation comes across as fresh. S. can't look back. She can't look forward. She can't even claim the present. ``But nothing is close enough to her yet, not the wet asphalt she is treading, not the cup of coffee she is holding, not the snowflakes falling on her face.''
Only when S. resettles in Stockholm, that gleaming Swedish bastion of prosperity and social services, can she try to come to terms with living. Just what that entails can't be reduced to a few words, but her agonizing reflections, and where they lead, never feel less than honest.
Steve Kettmann is an American writer living in Berlin.
This article appeared on page RV - 10 of the San Francisco Chronicle
S. A Novel of the Balkans By Slavenka Drakulic Viking; 216 pages; $22.95
Croatian writer Slavenka Drakulic has given the world a gift, digging into the twisted reality of the war that splintered the former Yugoslavia and emerging with ``S.,'' a searing story about a woman held in a Bosnian concentration camp. It is a haunting, difficult novel that is also somehow redemptive.
In the past, Drakulic has demonstrated in essays such as ``Cafe Europa: Life After Communism'' an inspired knack for unlikely but telling details. She also has a restlessness and a moral imagination that give her work nuance and power and flavor -- this last quality being one she jokes about in the title of her I-loved-him-so- much-I-ate-him novel, ``The Taste of a Man.''
But never has she combined her approach and her subject matter into anything like the cataclysmic power of this new novel, which makes her earlier novels look like secondary-school warmups. Drakulic not only pulls us into the world of this anonymous young woman, a teacher taken away by Serb soldiers along with everyone else in the town she works in, but she does it without manipulation.
``The smell, the smell of dust in the dry air, that is what she will remember,'' begins an early chapter. ``The taste of coffee with too much sugar. The image of women quietly climbing on to the bus, one by one, as if going on an excursion. And the smell of her own sweat.''
Some might call Drakulic's adroit use of sight and sound and fleeting impression manipulative, but when it works as well as this, the criticism seems misplaced.
Drakulic takes us through the succession of horrors endured by S. in such a relaxed manner, it almost seems like travel writing. There is the uncertain young man who comes to take S. away. ``The black nail of his big toe is poking out of his torn cloth sneakers,'' she writes. There is the subdued horror of packing just a few belongings when S. has no idea how long she will be gone or where she's being taken. And there is the power of a good list, such as this one describing the villagers: ``These people are leaving behind uneaten food on the table, unwashed dishes, unfinished work, animals in the barn, radios playing, laundry for ironing, arguments.''
Drakulic keeps her prose orderly and controlled. Simple impression follows simple impression. The cumulative effect makes the reader go from understanding the fracture of Yugoslavia by what was shown on TV to knowing it through benumbing verisimilitude.
Because Drakulic always looks for the small, human moment that can offer respite from horror, the atrocities portrayed never seem gratuitous or polemical. That's saying a lot, given such passages as S. overhearing a ``young voice'' saying: ``I saw three dead girls in a ditch. I knew them from school. They were naked. Their breasts had been cut off. I covered them with leaves.''
The book never drags, and no page stands out as less gripping than the next. But the story rises to another level of horror when S. moves into the ``women's room'' in the concentration camp. Drakulic juxtaposes the ordinary with the extraordinary to make these scenes so powerful:
``S. tries to unbutton her blouse. Three pairs of men's eyes watch her movements as her trembling fingers fail to find the buttons. It is not that she does not want to obey their order. On the contrary, she is in a hurry to do so. At that moment she cannot even think about doing anything else -- but S. no longer controls her fingers.''
What the soldiers do to S., the hows and whys of it, cannot fail to shake loose troubling perspectives on war and what it means. Drakulic could not have written a book this good, this free of cheap effect, if she had rushed herself. She had to spend time mulling over the war, gaining something to serve as ballast, something enabling her to see the truth in a line such as, ``But the soldiers are no longer people either, except that they are less aware of it.''
Despite the dehumanization suffered, Drakulic's main character remains alive on the page, even if she doesn't have an actual name, just a letter, like all the women in the story. ``I'm alive, she thinks, as if this were a secret to be kept for herself.'' Later, ``(s)he jumps, suddenly, as if startled out of a dream.'' And still later, during the unnerving section devoted to S.'s odd liaison with the camp's sad, proper and yet ultimately debauched commander: ``Smells are a dangerous thing, they catapult you back into the past and she is afraid of forgetting where she is. She must focus on the captain.''
Eventually, S. and the others are released from the camp. The psychology of what they face afterward has been explored elsewhere, but even so, Drakulic's take on psychological dislocation comes across as fresh. S. can't look back. She can't look forward. She can't even claim the present. ``But nothing is close enough to her yet, not the wet asphalt she is treading, not the cup of coffee she is holding, not the snowflakes falling on her face.''
Only when S. resettles in Stockholm, that gleaming Swedish bastion of prosperity and social services, can she try to come to terms with living. Just what that entails can't be reduced to a few words, but her agonizing reflections, and where they lead, never feel less than honest.
Steve Kettmann is an American writer living in Berlin.
This article appeared on page RV - 10 of the San Francisco Chronicle
January 9, 2025
HISTORICAL CONTEXT:
Yugoslavia
I know little about the history of Yugoslavia, especially its collapse and the ensuing Balkan Wars of the 1990's.
Up until its collapse, it was a confederation of autonomous socialist republics, analogous to the Soviet Union (although it was formally non-aligned with the USSR).
From 1953 until his death in 1980, Josip Tito was president of the federation.
Tito died shortly after his left leg was amputated, following a gangrenous infection.
I remember two generally held views or pieces of gossip from around this period.
Firstly, before his death, it was commonly believed that only Tito could have held the federation of Yugoslavia together. It came as no surprise that, after his death, the federation collapsed and disintegrated.
Secondly, after the amputation of his leg, there was supposedly a piece of graffiti, perhaps in London, that said, "Alms for the poor, legs for Tito."
Bosnia
In 1992, the protagonist of this novel was a resident of the small village of B. in Bosnia, where she was a school teacher.
Up until Tito's death, Bosnia had been the most ethnically and religiously diverse of the Yugoslav republics. In March, 1992, it held a referendum to determine whether it should declare independence from the federation. While 60% of the participants supported independence, Bosnian Serbs (who made up 30% of the overall population of Bosnia) opposed the referendum, wanting to remain in the federation of Yugoslavia (as did Serbs elsewhere in the federation).
After the referendum, hostilities broke out between Bosnians and Croatians (on the one hand), and Serbs and Bosnian Serbs (on the other hand). The Yugoslav People's Army ("JNA") took the side of the Serbs.
CRITIQUE:
Destruction of Identity
The protagonist is a Muslim woman. Her father is a Muslim engineer, and her mother is a Serb.
In the novel, she is known only as "S." We don't know her real name or her surname, nor do we know the names of other women or any of the soldiers (although their leader [who is from Serbia] is referred to as "the Captain").
Soldiers from the JNA take S. and other Muslim women to a gym in another village:
Soon after, the women are bussed to a factory warehouse, what one of the soldiers calls an "exchange camp":
While the women have been imprisoned in a part of the camp (known as "the women's room"), the soldiers have killed a group of men, and torched the village:
Proof of Existence
S. often takes her personal possessions out of her backpack:
S. has been keeping family photographs in her backpack:
Self-Preservation
Just as the soldiers aim to destroy the identity of the internees, they undermine their self-awareness, social-awareness, pride, self-confidence and trust in others:
Slavenka Drakulić
Military Rape
Like all of the women in the women's room, S. is raped multiple times by guards and soldiers:
The Captain invites S. to keep him company in his quarters at least once a week, usually Saturdays. Unlike the other soldiers, the Captain is never rough with her. If the circumstances had been different, there might have been a mutual attraction. However, this is purely hypothetical. She must content herself with "an advancement in her camp status".
Motherhood
Shortly before the war ends, S. discovers that she is pregnant. She can't be sure of the identity of the father, so she assumes that it is all of the men she has slept with at the camp.
When she is taken to Stockholm as a refugee, she initially decides to offer the child up for adoption.
This means that her child, a representative of the next generation, will start without a complete identity. So war deprives multiple generations of their identity.
VERSE:
The Descent of Dread
[In the Words of Slavenka Drakulić]
As darkness descends,
So does the dread.
SOUNDTRACK:
Yugoslavia
I know little about the history of Yugoslavia, especially its collapse and the ensuing Balkan Wars of the 1990's.
Up until its collapse, it was a confederation of autonomous socialist republics, analogous to the Soviet Union (although it was formally non-aligned with the USSR).
From 1953 until his death in 1980, Josip Tito was president of the federation.
Tito died shortly after his left leg was amputated, following a gangrenous infection.
I remember two generally held views or pieces of gossip from around this period.
Firstly, before his death, it was commonly believed that only Tito could have held the federation of Yugoslavia together. It came as no surprise that, after his death, the federation collapsed and disintegrated.
Secondly, after the amputation of his leg, there was supposedly a piece of graffiti, perhaps in London, that said, "Alms for the poor, legs for Tito."
Bosnia
In 1992, the protagonist of this novel was a resident of the small village of B. in Bosnia, where she was a school teacher.
Up until Tito's death, Bosnia had been the most ethnically and religiously diverse of the Yugoslav republics. In March, 1992, it held a referendum to determine whether it should declare independence from the federation. While 60% of the participants supported independence, Bosnian Serbs (who made up 30% of the overall population of Bosnia) opposed the referendum, wanting to remain in the federation of Yugoslavia (as did Serbs elsewhere in the federation).
After the referendum, hostilities broke out between Bosnians and Croatians (on the one hand), and Serbs and Bosnian Serbs (on the other hand). The Yugoslav People's Army ("JNA") took the side of the Serbs.
CRITIQUE:
Destruction of Identity
The protagonist is a Muslim woman. Her father is a Muslim engineer, and her mother is a Serb.
In the novel, she is known only as "S." We don't know her real name or her surname, nor do we know the names of other women or any of the soldiers (although their leader [who is from Serbia] is referred to as "the Captain").
Soldiers from the JNA take S. and other Muslim women to a gym in another village:
"These people seem to her unable to understand that for these armed men they are guilty simply because they exist, because they are different, because they are Muslims. And that that is reason enough for them."
Soon after, the women are bussed to a factory warehouse, what one of the soldiers calls an "exchange camp":
"In a single day we had all been reduced to the lowest possible denominator, to brute existence...
"The day seems to have gone by so quickly and the turn of events has left her no time to think."
While the women have been imprisoned in a part of the camp (known as "the women's room"), the soldiers have killed a group of men, and torched the village:
"Stories spread through the camp about torture and about the thousands of people killed in the men's camp...
"S. does not know what to make of these rumours. She's afraid that people exaggerate and invent the most horrible stories.
"You believe it only if you yourself see it. Perhaps this deliberate blindness is a form of self-preservation."
Proof of Existence
S. often takes her personal possessions out of her backpack:
"She has to prove to herself that she still exists as a person, as S., if only through her belongings. Until that summer her identity had seemed indisputable. She knew who she was, she had family and friends, a job, interests...Now, however, she is inhabiting an underground world where the rules are different. She is connected to her previous world by the slim hope that it is still possible to be the same person, but already senses the fragility of this hope, the uncertainty of her own existence.
"She feels like a cracked bowl which is slowly leaking water. Even her memories are becoming remote and inaccessible."
S. has been keeping family photographs in her backpack:
"These pictures are her strongest proof that there truly did exist a person named S., twenty-nine years of age, a graduate of the Teacher Training College, temporarily employed in the village of B. as a home-room teacher, single, 1.68 meters tall, brown hair, brown eyes, no birthmarks..."
Self-Preservation
Just as the soldiers aim to destroy the identity of the internees, they undermine their self-awareness, social-awareness, pride, self-confidence and trust in others:
"The aim is to humiliate people. The internees cease to be human beings and their bodily needs, like their bodies themselves, become part of the machinery whose workings and aim they can only guess...the first lesson of survival in a camp [is] selfishness...
"It is better not to approach the guards, not to have anything to do with them. You never know how it will end. They do not need much of an excuse to whack somebody or do something even worse than that. It is better to become invisible."
"S. notices that she no longer has a will of her own, it has been replaced by something else, as if a robot has taken control of her body, making it move and react in her stead. Again, it is happening to someone else and to her at the same time.
"If the women prisoners cannot count on one another, then there is nothing she can trust any more...It is perfectly clear to her now that she cannot trust anyone...
"What upsets her is the feeling of diminishment, impoverishment and effacement. She wonders what else she will have to give up and what is the minimum of things with which one can survive without losing the feeling that one is human?"
"...We are all infected by the camp in the some way, she thinks. Of tainted blood, we are all the same. Women exist here only in the plural now. Nameless, faceless, interchangeable. There are only two categories, young and old."
"S. sometimes forgets that there is no real solidarity here, merely the struggle for bare existence."
"Opening up inside her again is the hole that swallows up everything that is human about here."
"We're not human any more, thinks S., the camp has stopped us from feeling human."
Slavenka Drakulić
Military Rape
Like all of the women in the women's room, S. is raped multiple times by guards and soldiers:
"More clearly than ever before she feels stripped of her right to herself, completely dispossessed of her own body."
"The women's room...is a storehouse of women, in a room where female bodies were stored for the use of men...This is nothing other than a soldiers' brothel...their task is to rape you...So, for them, the prisoners are garbage."
The Captain invites S. to keep him company in his quarters at least once a week, usually Saturdays. Unlike the other soldiers, the Captain is never rough with her. If the circumstances had been different, there might have been a mutual attraction. However, this is purely hypothetical. She must content herself with "an advancement in her camp status".
Motherhood
Shortly before the war ends, S. discovers that she is pregnant. She can't be sure of the identity of the father, so she assumes that it is all of the men she has slept with at the camp.
When she is taken to Stockholm as a refugee, she initially decides to offer the child up for adoption.
This means that her child, a representative of the next generation, will start without a complete identity. So war deprives multiple generations of their identity.
VERSE:
The Descent of Dread
[In the Words of Slavenka Drakulić]
As darkness descends,
So does the dread.
SOUNDTRACK:
Read
May 18, 2023Напевно, найбільше мене в цій книзі вразило те, що після минулого року в ній уже нічого не дивує. Тут є абсолютно жахливі сцени та події, про всі з яких ми точно читали/бачили в новинах за останній рік (і добре тим, хто тільки в новинах). Це я не намагаюся порівняти страждання, а тільки сказати, що в геноциду завжди однакове обличчя. Що в окупантів завжди однакові злочини. І скільки книжок про це не напишуть, не думаю, що можливо донести до когось як це - коли весь твій народ хочуть вбити (і вбивають!) просто за факт вашого існування.
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February 20, 2021Це документальний роман про жінку мого віку, з якою легко себе ототожнити: любить гарний одяг, мейк, модні журнали, випічку на сніданок, літній відпочинок на морі. Маленькі повсякденні ритуали, які надають життю розміреності й приємності. Плекає свій затишний світ, поки одного дня чужий чоловік зі зброєю не вривається в квартиру й чекає, поки зберешся.
Що взяти з собою, як вмістити дотеперішнє життя в один наплічник? Було б неправильно і дуже грубо сказати, що я розумію жінок, які пакували з собою в концтабори ось ці найгарніші найдорожчі туфлі для особливих випадків, червоні сукні й косметички, бо цього ніколи не осягнути тому, хто сам не пережив (як каже героїня, її спроби потім розповідати про пережите насильство нагадували розмову з глухим, який не має слухового апарату, її слова ковзали наче по поверхні свідомості лікарів і психотерапевтів, не сягаючи глибше), але принаймні можу відчути намагання захопити з собою в невідомість рештки звичних радощів.
"Дівчина щиро сподівається, що їй іще знадобляться рум'яна і губна помада. Яскраво-червона помада. У косметичці є також гребінець і зубна щітка. С. витягає зубну щітку, довго дивиться на неї. Якщо після когось лишається зубна щітка —т� це переконливий знак, що цій людині вона ніколи вже не знадобиться".
Це роман про масові ґвалтування боснійських жінок у сербських концтаборах, про крихкість і неналежання жіночого тіла самій собі, про пам'ять і забуття, про те, чого зрештою у світі більше: любові чи ненависті, і що перемагає. Дуже важка книжка, яку читаєш малими дозами.
(Нарешті вловила візуальні рішення ось цих рожевих, на позір гламурних, обкладинок в особливо важких книжках, як ця, або, наприклад, "Під скляним ковпаком" Сильвії Плат).
Що взяти з собою, як вмістити дотеперішнє життя в один наплічник? Було б неправильно і дуже грубо сказати, що я розумію жінок, які пакували з собою в концтабори ось ці найгарніші найдорожчі туфлі для особливих випадків, червоні сукні й косметички, бо цього ніколи не осягнути тому, хто сам не пережив (як каже героїня, її спроби потім розповідати про пережите насильство нагадували розмову з глухим, який не має слухового апарату, її слова ковзали наче по поверхні свідомості лікарів і психотерапевтів, не сягаючи глибше), але принаймні можу відчути намагання захопити з собою в невідомість рештки звичних радощів.
"Дівчина щиро сподівається, що їй іще знадобляться рум'яна і губна помада. Яскраво-червона помада. У косметичці є також гребінець і зубна щітка. С. витягає зубну щітку, довго дивиться на неї. Якщо після когось лишається зубна щітка —т� це переконливий знак, що цій людині вона ніколи вже не знадобиться".
Це роман про масові ґвалтування боснійських жінок у сербських концтаборах, про крихкість і неналежання жіночого тіла самій собі, про пам'ять і забуття, про те, чого зрештою у світі більше: любові чи ненависті, і що перемагає. Дуже важка книжка, яку читаєш малими дозами.
(Нарешті вловила візуальні рішення ось цих рожевих, на позір гламурних, обкладинок в особливо важких книжках, як ця, або, наприклад, "Під скляним ковпаком" Сильвії Плат).
June 5, 2018
Li esta obra em dois dias e ainda a estou a digerir. Como mulher, creio que ainda dói e fere mais ler relatos hediondos como este, mesmo que os mesmos sejam ficcionais, já que infelizmente a ficção não difere em nada da realidade, do que se passou entre homens, mulheres e crianças que até há pouco tempo eram vizinhos, amigos a até da mesma família. Não consigo, mesmo depois de ter lido tantos e tantos livros sobre este e outros conflitos, conceber como é que um ser humano é capaz de cometer tais atrocidades a outro ser humano. Sei que me estou a repetir, que já escrevi inúmeras vezes este último pensamento, mas nunca irei entendê-lo. Nunca.
Opinião completa em:
(é uma opinião em conjunto, um 2 em 1, se quiserem)
Opinião completa em:
(é uma opinião em conjunto, um 2 em 1, se quiserem)
December 13, 2021
I am so thankful this novel exists
September 27, 2022
Ця книга, як концентрований біль жертви насилля. Головна героїня жінка, яка опиняється у концтаборі в Боснії, позбавлена будь яких прав
Ця книга також має багато спільного з ситуацією жінок на окупованих росією українських землях
Ця книга також має багато спільного з ситуацією жінок на окупованих росією українських землях
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 30, 2023
Wow! This is easily the most affecting book on war I’ve ever read. So visceral and raw and important in terms of reminding us that there have been a lot of conflicts since WW II that the world has essentially forgotten. Drakulic does a very good job of bringing to life what life is like for people who manage to leave the war zone and become refugees. We are all just one conflict, famine or devastating weather event away from being a refugee.
January 6, 2020
A sad tale of the brutality of rape in war told through the experiences of an unnamed Bosnian woman who is entrapped as one of a group of women who are repeatedly raped by their Serbian guards. The story covers her capture, her life in the camp and importantly the months after being freed and how she copes with her life.
The writing is a sparse, cold and bleak. The story is ugly but it tells a real tale for what happens too many women who find themselves in a conflict or war zone. An important book of frightening reality.
The writing is a sparse, cold and bleak. The story is ugly but it tells a real tale for what happens too many women who find themselves in a conflict or war zone. An important book of frightening reality.
June 14, 2020
A must read book.It reminded me of movies such as Incendies, Beanpole and Aurora Borealis
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"Their murderers need to forget, but their victims must not let them "
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"Their murderers need to forget, but their victims must not let them "
June 21, 2024
3,5 �
"Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch'entrate" Dante Alighieri, La Commedia (Infierno).
La presentación ya nos da un panorama sobre la historia: en el contexto de la Guerra de Bosnia, y ya exiliada en Suecia, M acaba de parir el fruto de las violaciones que ha sufrido.
La historia vuelve atrás, desarrollando una crónica que arranca con su detención y su posterior estadía en el Campo de Internamiento, que es acompañada con las fluctuantes emociones y el proceso de despersonalización, en el que la supervivencia psíquica y también física, es tratar de vivir el presente, dejando de lado cualquier tipo de esperanza (aunque, paradójicamente, sostenida por la esperanza tácita de que no será eterno).
Todo este proceso es descripto de manera sobria, y aunque mucho de lo que se narra es horroroso, se desarrolla sin efectismos innecesarios.
La mayor desafío de la narración era tratar de ir matizando el horror de manera de evitar la insensibilización (numbness) del lector; y para ello, el camino elegido es la literalidad llana. Me pareció que la historia narrada podría haberse enriquecido incorporando algunos elementos más de la subjetividad, incluyendo el delirio y lo surreal, que a veces puede ser eficaz para dar cuenta de lo indescriptible.
De todos modos, una buena novela, tal vez más más cercano al rigor de la crónica de un Diario Personal que a la aventura de la creación artística (El libro inicialmente estaba previsto como la publicación de entrevistas a las víctimas, al modo de ).
"Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch'entrate" Dante Alighieri, La Commedia (Infierno).
La presentación ya nos da un panorama sobre la historia: en el contexto de la Guerra de Bosnia, y ya exiliada en Suecia, M acaba de parir el fruto de las violaciones que ha sufrido.
La historia vuelve atrás, desarrollando una crónica que arranca con su detención y su posterior estadía en el Campo de Internamiento, que es acompañada con las fluctuantes emociones y el proceso de despersonalización, en el que la supervivencia psíquica y también física, es tratar de vivir el presente, dejando de lado cualquier tipo de esperanza (aunque, paradójicamente, sostenida por la esperanza tácita de que no será eterno).
Todo este proceso es descripto de manera sobria, y aunque mucho de lo que se narra es horroroso, se desarrolla sin efectismos innecesarios.
La mayor desafío de la narración era tratar de ir matizando el horror de manera de evitar la insensibilización (numbness) del lector; y para ello, el camino elegido es la literalidad llana. Me pareció que la historia narrada podría haberse enriquecido incorporando algunos elementos más de la subjetividad, incluyendo el delirio y lo surreal, que a veces puede ser eficaz para dar cuenta de lo indescriptible.
De todos modos, una buena novela, tal vez más más cercano al rigor de la crónica de un Diario Personal que a la aventura de la creación artística (El libro inicialmente estaba previsto como la publicación de entrevistas a las víctimas, al modo de ).
February 3, 2021
Найстрашніша і найважча книжка...весь час відчуття голок під шкірою
August 8, 2021
I discovered Slavenka Drakulić's novel 'S. : a novel about the Balkans' recently. I tried to stay strong and brave today, when I started to read it.
S. is in a hospital in Stockholm. She has just given birth to her baby. But S. doesn't want to touch her baby. She doesn't want to keep it. She wants to give it up for adoption. We are puzzled why. The story travels a year back in time. S. is a school teacher in a village in Bosnia. It is the early '90s. One day she hears some loud conversation in the street. Then a soldier walks into her house. He asks her to pack up things and leave. S. is puzzled but packs a bag and comes out. All the village people are put in buses and taken somewhere. They end up in a camp in the middle of nowhere. Then the horror starts. The women are first put in a camp and are expected to work to keep the camp running. Then some of them are chosen and put in a different building. Then unspeakable horrible things are inflicted upon them by the soldiers. Some of the women die as a result. S. ends up in that building. What happens after that forms the rest of the story.
The first half of the story felt like a combination of 'One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich' and 'The Handmaid's Tale'. It was very hard to read. Things get a little better after that. It appears that Slavenka Drakulić based her story on real events which happened in Bosnia in the '90s. It is very hard to believe that such horrible things happened not long time back. This was not the time of the Nazis. It was not the medieval ages. It was just now. The women who ended up in those camps when they were young and who survived, must be in their forties or fifties now. I can't imagine the kind of nightmares they'll be having even today and the emotional scars that they still have in their hearts. It is just so heartbreaking to think about. The ending of the book was beautiful and life affirming and I thank Slavenka Drakulić for offering that sliver of hope.
I can't say that I enjoyed reading 'S.', because it was a heartbreaking story which was hard to read, but I am glad I read it, because it shines the light on a horrible episode in recent human history, and hopefully this book will make humans learn from their past and become better people.
I'm sharing one of my favourite passages from the book, which is one of the beautiful, sunny moments from the story.
"S. does not remember the day, but she does remember the moment that N. took out of her apron a round golden loaf of bread, corn bread. It was still warm. J. grabbed the bread from her hands and kissed it. She carried it around the room, holding it out for each girl to smell. For S. there was nothing more wonderful than the smell of freshly baked bread, of buns which her mother would bring back from the corner bakery in the morning, before S. and her sister were up. When she opened the front door the smell would fill the entire apartment. They would wake up and find waiting on the table for them the bread and the buns, still warm and fragrant. N. breaks up the bread and suddenly they feel as if there is no war and they are not in a camp. N. sits down with the girls. She does not eat, she merely observes their delight over the fresh bread she has just baked for them..."
Have you read 'S. : a Novel about the Balkans'? What do you think about it?
S. is in a hospital in Stockholm. She has just given birth to her baby. But S. doesn't want to touch her baby. She doesn't want to keep it. She wants to give it up for adoption. We are puzzled why. The story travels a year back in time. S. is a school teacher in a village in Bosnia. It is the early '90s. One day she hears some loud conversation in the street. Then a soldier walks into her house. He asks her to pack up things and leave. S. is puzzled but packs a bag and comes out. All the village people are put in buses and taken somewhere. They end up in a camp in the middle of nowhere. Then the horror starts. The women are first put in a camp and are expected to work to keep the camp running. Then some of them are chosen and put in a different building. Then unspeakable horrible things are inflicted upon them by the soldiers. Some of the women die as a result. S. ends up in that building. What happens after that forms the rest of the story.
The first half of the story felt like a combination of 'One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich' and 'The Handmaid's Tale'. It was very hard to read. Things get a little better after that. It appears that Slavenka Drakulić based her story on real events which happened in Bosnia in the '90s. It is very hard to believe that such horrible things happened not long time back. This was not the time of the Nazis. It was not the medieval ages. It was just now. The women who ended up in those camps when they were young and who survived, must be in their forties or fifties now. I can't imagine the kind of nightmares they'll be having even today and the emotional scars that they still have in their hearts. It is just so heartbreaking to think about. The ending of the book was beautiful and life affirming and I thank Slavenka Drakulić for offering that sliver of hope.
I can't say that I enjoyed reading 'S.', because it was a heartbreaking story which was hard to read, but I am glad I read it, because it shines the light on a horrible episode in recent human history, and hopefully this book will make humans learn from their past and become better people.
I'm sharing one of my favourite passages from the book, which is one of the beautiful, sunny moments from the story.
"S. does not remember the day, but she does remember the moment that N. took out of her apron a round golden loaf of bread, corn bread. It was still warm. J. grabbed the bread from her hands and kissed it. She carried it around the room, holding it out for each girl to smell. For S. there was nothing more wonderful than the smell of freshly baked bread, of buns which her mother would bring back from the corner bakery in the morning, before S. and her sister were up. When she opened the front door the smell would fill the entire apartment. They would wake up and find waiting on the table for them the bread and the buns, still warm and fragrant. N. breaks up the bread and suddenly they feel as if there is no war and they are not in a camp. N. sits down with the girls. She does not eat, she merely observes their delight over the fresh bread she has just baked for them..."
Have you read 'S. : a Novel about the Balkans'? What do you think about it?
April 5, 2024
A difficult book to read and review.
S is a Muslim schoolteacher in a village in rural Bosnia in 1999. The war is going on but it is far away. Then Serbian soldiers come to the village and round up the villagers, who are taken to a holding camp. The men and women are separated and the men are taken away by Serb guards. After twenty minutes or so there is the sound of gunfire and the guards come back alone.
S is moved to a separate area within the camp, where younger women and girls are kept. At night drunken guards come and select that evenings entertainment. Sometimes the girls come back beaten and battered, sometimes they don't. No matter, there are more girls to replace the dead.
S eventually gets out in a prisoner swap and finds refuge in Sweden. There is one problem, she is pregnant and the father is a Serb rapist - one of many. What to do - the baby is innocent but also the result of a heinous crime.
An unsettling read, not for the squeamish, but an important work nonetheless.
S is a Muslim schoolteacher in a village in rural Bosnia in 1999. The war is going on but it is far away. Then Serbian soldiers come to the village and round up the villagers, who are taken to a holding camp. The men and women are separated and the men are taken away by Serb guards. After twenty minutes or so there is the sound of gunfire and the guards come back alone.
S is moved to a separate area within the camp, where younger women and girls are kept. At night drunken guards come and select that evenings entertainment. Sometimes the girls come back beaten and battered, sometimes they don't. No matter, there are more girls to replace the dead.
S eventually gets out in a prisoner swap and finds refuge in Sweden. There is one problem, she is pregnant and the father is a Serb rapist - one of many. What to do - the baby is innocent but also the result of a heinous crime.
An unsettling read, not for the squeamish, but an important work nonetheless.
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