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A review by vivekrs
Safe Area Goražde: The War in Eastern Bosnia, 1992-1995 by Christopher Hitchens, Joe Sacco
5.0
A graphic novel about a gruesome war, who'd have thought it could be as chilling as this. Joe Sacco's book details the four or so years in the life of a small town called Gorazde in eastern Bosnia which was more or less cut off from the rest of the world. He writes (and draws beautifully), the stories of sadness, death and hopelessness that riddled this part of former Yugoslavia. Though designated a Safe Area by the UN, Gorazde was forsaken when the hour came and had it not been for some rare good luck, it could have gone the same way as its fellow Safe Area, Srebrenica, where 8000 men were massacred in a genocide unlike any post WWII.
All this, I knew nothing of before reading this book. Had Sacco written a non-fiction prose about this with the same intensity, I'd not have read it. Only that it was a graphic novel made me want to and I am much the richer for it. It has not just made me aware of a part of the world I didn't know existed a week back, it also made me feel more strongly about graphic novels as a significant arm of modern literature.
All this, I knew nothing of before reading this book. Had Sacco written a non-fiction prose about this with the same intensity, I'd not have read it. Only that it was a graphic novel made me want to and I am much the richer for it. It has not just made me aware of a part of the world I didn't know existed a week back, it also made me feel more strongly about graphic novels as a significant arm of modern literature.