Madness Visible

Zusatztext 77468023 Informationen zum Autor Janine di Giovanni is a senior foreign correspondent for The Times of London and a contributing editor to Vanity Fair . She is the recipient of a 2000 National Magazine Award for her reporting from the Balkans, two Amnesty International awards for war reporting from Sierra Leone and Kosovo, and Granada Television's Foreign Correspondent of the Year award for being one of the few reporters to witness the fall of Grozny, Chechnya. She has been the focus of an award-winning documentary about women war correspondents, No Man's Land . She is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where she received an M.F.A. in fiction. She lives in Paris with her husband, the French reporter Bruno Girodon, and their baby son, Luca. Klappentext As a senior foreign correspondent for The Times of London! Janine di Giovanni was a firsthand witness to the brutal and protracted break-up of Yugoslavia. With unflinching sensitivity! Madness Visible follows the arc of the wars in the Balkans through the experience of those caught up in them: soldiers numbed by the atrocities they commit! women driven to despair by their life in paramilitary rape camps! civilians (di Giovanni among them) caught in bombing raids of uncertain origin! babies murdered in hate-induced rage. Di Giovanni's searing memoir examines the turmoil of the Balkans in acute detail! and uncovers the motives of the leaders who created hell on earth; it raises challenging questions about ethnic conflict and the responsibilities of foreign governments in times of mass murder. Perceptive and compelling! this unique work of reportage from the physical and psychological front lines makes the madness of war wholly visible. Chapter One Exactly how much time passes from the moment a man is wounded until he starts to feel pain? Sometimes it's a second. Sometimes it's an hour. Sometimes it's more than an eternity. Artyom Borovik, The Hidden War Albanians Killed as Kosovo Village Is Blown Apart; At Least 60 Civilians Die More than 60 Albanians were killed and scores more badly wounded late Thursday night when bombs blew apart a village in southwest Kosovo, near Prizren, Yugoslav officials and journalists at the scene said Friday. The attack, in Korisa, was said by Yugoslav Government officials to have been carried out by NATO warplanes. . . . NATO officials in Brussels said they were investigating the report and were reluctant to comment before their work was complete. . . . New York Times, May 15, 1999 KLA Forward Base Camp Near Kosare, Kosovo May 12, 1999 Much later, I remembered the stillness, the quiet of chaos. The wet, late spring. The way time slowed down until each second seemed elastic. The sixty seconds that it took for four men to lift the youngest soldier, dead, boots still on, and lay him carefully on the back of a truck bound for the morgue. How everything surrounding that minute--the tears of the soldiers lifting him, the way a hand was cupped over a match to light a cigarette, the Kalashnikov thrown angrily on the ground--stretched into hours. In the background, the low rumble of noise. It seemed so far away, over the mountain even, but it was right there. Some soldier crying: "My two brothers died. . . . I don't want to die." Or the way the sky changed. The early-morning breaking light during the first wave of bombing, deepest blue with the faintest brushing of stars. Then lighter azure, then premature streaks of pink. The sun finally rising over the harsh mountains. Then finally light enough so that I could see the sleeping soldiers next to me, dotting their way down the trench. In the darkness, I mistook them for tree stumps. Or the way that t...

"[An] unforgettable account. . . . Vivid, compassionate prose. . . . Few writers can match her evocations of individual suffering in wartime." —Newsweek (International Edition)

“Many journalists have written accounts of the wars of Yugoslav dissolution. Madness Visible *is among the best of them. . . . One of Giovanni’s strengths is that if she takes sides it is simply the side of the victim. . . . Succeeds admirably.” –*Times Literary Supplement

“A compelling and meticulous account. . . . The author is at her very best when she writes about the people. . . . When di Giovanni speaks of Sarajevo –and she does speak, her voice poignant, grief admixed with rage and frustration– it is gripping.” –*San Francisco Chronicle

• “Compelling reportage at its best: grisly and depressing at times, of course, but also revealing.” –*The Economist

“One of the best books ever written about war.” --*The Arizona Republic

"Moving. . . . Janine di Giovanni is our Virgil, guiding us through the circles of that man-made hell: Sarajevo, Kosovo, Pristina. . . . If you read no other book about the Balkan wars, read this one. " --Phil Caputo

“[An] important book. . . . There are few outsiders who better understand what has happened in the Balkans. . . . Madness Visible is the story of all wars.” --The Guardian (London)

"Di Giovanni connects names and battles as well as peoples who have a historic distrust of one another. . . . This is di Giovanni's one war, and she passionately documents its inhumanity." --*The New York Times

• “Illuminating. . . . [Her] stream-of-consciousness approach . . . imbues the book with its quiet but undeniable emotional power. . . . [Despite the] gloom that pervades each page, these accounts remain compelling because of Di Giovanni’s resolve to grasp each individual’s frail sense of hope and shattered human dignity.” --.*San Antonio Express-News
• “Remarkable. . . . A powerful, passionate account, and well worth the waiting for.” --The Times (London)

"Janine di Giovanni has described war in a way that almost makes me think it never needs to be described again. . . . More than a book about war, however, this is a book about the human race, in all its anguishing complexity. I can honestly say that I finished this book a wiser, more compassionate person than when I started." --Sebastian Junger

“Powerful. . . . Moving. . . . Full of gripping reportage about the horrors of life during wartime.” --Newsday

"The veteran reporter has a keen eye for detail and dialogue [while] . . . delving . . . substantially into the political, historical and ethnic tensions contributing to the 1992-95 war. . . . While di Giovanni looks back, however, she is aware that others do not. . . . Madness Visible reminds us of the folly and shame in this neglect." --*The Washington Post

• “Janine di Giovanni is superb--an extraordinarily brave war correspondent and a wonderful writer as well. What a combination!” --William Shawcross

"Excellent. . . . Di Giovanni depicts just how unsatisfactory, even crazy, the 'peace' in Kosovo is. . . . Her descriptive talents are at their best when her eye comes to rest on the plight of civilians. . . . Don't read this book for its analysis of Balkan politics, which you can get elsewhere, but for its very humane portrait of fighters, refugees and victims." --The Daily Telegraph (London)

"An embedded journalist before the term was invented. . . . [Di Giovanni] provides a haunting record of the continuing war in the Balkans." --*Harper's Bazaar

• "Powerful. . . . The images are unforgettable and di Giovanni writes movingly, with no need for embellishment, about . . . the insanity and irrationality of human behavior. Read this book and you may begin to understand what war looks and feels like, or even smells like." --*The Spectator
• "Chilling. . . . [Di Giovanni's] courage is matched only by her compassion for her subjects. . . . She is a woman who simply doesn't know the meaning of the word 'can't' and in her profession that's a ma…