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4.31 AVERAGE
4.31 AVERAGE
The only reason I gave this three stars is because this is a bit of hard reading. Not hard in difficulty, but hard in the subject matter. It can be a bit depressing at times, but aside from that, this is a very worthy reading. The story covers the Bosnian war during the nineties until the Dayton Accords period. To be honest, if you want a good history of this time period along with a story of people who lived the war, this is a very good source. It is visual, as a graphic novel can be, but the text is substantial and the work as a whole is a good learning tool. Sacco gives a narrative, but there are also useful asides to give context. Overall, this work is a great example of the possibilities that graphic novels can achieve in terms of literature and visual element. By the way, if you have read works like Maus, you will likely enjoy this one as well. It was a good book to read for me.
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.
▪️Safe Area Goražde: The War in Eastern Bosnia 1992-1995 by Joe Sacco, 2001
#ReadtheWorld21
#ReadtheWorld21
challenging
dark
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
dark
funny
reflective
sad
fast-paced
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Content Warnings
Graphic: War, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Rape
As a comic book nerd I've long enjoyed Joe Sacco's amazing work. Superb journalism presented in comic book format, he is an artist who reminds us of all of the promise in the format.
I bought Safe Area Goražde at my local comic book store because I am in a period of learning more about the Bosnian War and it was by Joe Sacco and I could afford it at the time. I read it following my read of Logavina Street by Barbara Demick and it was a great companion piece. Where Demick's book is all about Sarajevo, Sacco's is about conditions in Safe Area Goražde, a small place that was under unrelenting siege from 1992 to 1995. Sacco gives a great deal of background information about the conflict while at the same time humanizing it through format and the eyes of the people who lived through the siege (including his own). Each in their own put themselves in the center of the stories they're telling - an acknowledgment of the myth of objectivity.
I've read a lot of history and a lot of historical fiction and when the words "siege warfare" come up I tend to think about castles and knights and big walls and the people inside eating their horses. Safe Area Goražde taught me a lot about modern siege warfare and opened my eyes further to a story I have neglected. It is simple to understand why Mr. Sacco won the Eisner Award for this book. Brilliant, heart-stopping, and terribly sad this is a work of genius - highly recommended.
I bought Safe Area Goražde at my local comic book store because I am in a period of learning more about the Bosnian War and it was by Joe Sacco and I could afford it at the time. I read it following my read of Logavina Street by Barbara Demick and it was a great companion piece. Where Demick's book is all about Sarajevo, Sacco's is about conditions in Safe Area Goražde, a small place that was under unrelenting siege from 1992 to 1995. Sacco gives a great deal of background information about the conflict while at the same time humanizing it through format and the eyes of the people who lived through the siege (including his own). Each in their own put themselves in the center of the stories they're telling - an acknowledgment of the myth of objectivity.
I've read a lot of history and a lot of historical fiction and when the words "siege warfare" come up I tend to think about castles and knights and big walls and the people inside eating their horses. Safe Area Goražde taught me a lot about modern siege warfare and opened my eyes further to a story I have neglected. It is simple to understand why Mr. Sacco won the Eisner Award for this book. Brilliant, heart-stopping, and terribly sad this is a work of genius - highly recommended.
challenging
dark
emotional
medium-paced
Content Warnings
Graphic: Genocide, Violence, War
Moderate: Rape
I think this may be one of the most moving and gut-wrenching books about war that I've ever read. I'm not sure why it made so much more of an impact on me than all of the other books of war journalism I've read over the years. There's something about it that just really gets under your skin. Maybe it's that Sacco can show us these people -- not just tell us what they looked like, but actually draw them as they look when they are most vulnerable or most ugly and violent. The plight of the denizens of Gorazde really got to me; I found myself walking home from work turning the story over in my mind. I think what hit me, which had never hit me before so much, was the realization that these were people who lived lives very much like mine: they went to school, they came home and watched TV and hung out with their neighbors and went to clubs. And then, in a matter of months, people from the city were freezing to death trying to walk to find food. The neighbors that they shared food with were killing each other. It really shook me up, the idea that life could go so quickly from peace and normality to something so horrific.