WHY BOSNIA
WRITINGS ON THE BALKAN WAR
EDITED BY RABIA ALI AND LAWRENCE LIFSCHULTZ
✒
Superbly edited collection
—The New York Review of Books
WHY BOSNIA, published at the height of the conflict that engulfed Bosnia-Hercegovina following the disintegration of Yugoslavia in 1991, is a powerful — and poignant — reminder in poetry and prose of what we have lost, why the survival of Bosnia mattered, and why what it represented still matters today.
Leading scholars, writers, and journalists form the United States, Europe and the former republics of former Yugoslavia came together to focus the world's attention on the underlying causes, the brutal course, and the far-reaching consequences of a war for "Greater Serbia" that made ethnic cleansing a strategy for ultranationalist hegemony and territorial conquest.
The leitmotif of the collection is multicultural, multi-faith, Bosnia—its significance, symbolism, and the necessity of its survival in a world increasingly divided against itself.
In carefully documented, strongly argued, vividly written accounts the authors sought to dispel the fog of confusion, misinformation, and propaganda that obstructed the formulation of a coherent, effective, and just international policy on Bosnia. They present the history, the reality, the poetry, and the unique character of a society threatened with extinction.
CONTRIBUTING AUTHORS include Christopher Hitchens, Kemal Kurspahić, David Rieff, T. D. Allman, Danilo Kiš, Ivo Banac, Slavoj Žižek, Francis R. Jones, Slavenka Draculić, Branka Magaš, Enes Karić, et al.
POETRY of Mak Dizdar, Nerkesi Muhammad, Mehmet Milli, Aleksa Santić, Mirko Kovac, Dzemaludin Latić, and Joesph Brodsky.
Editors
RABIA ALI is editorial director at the Pamphleteer's Press.
LAWRENCE LIFSCHULTZ is a writer and journalist. He was the South Asia Correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review and has written for The Guardian,The Nation, Le Monde Diplomatique, the BBC, and others on international affairs.
