In a Nutshell:

Zlata’s Diary is the diary of Zlata Filipović, with entries from September 1991-December 1993, it starts just before her 10th birthday. It is a moving, sometimes funny and very sad account of her experience of the Bosnian war as it hit her home city of Sarajevo.

Themes:

War, friendship, politics, love, childhood and loss.

An Observation:

This is one of the first books I remember being given as a child, I loved the edition that my mum gave me.

A Quote:

“It looks to me as though these politics mean Serbs, Croats and Muslims. But they are all people. They are all the same. They all look like people, there’s no difference.” – There are many parallels between this book and the Ukranian war and other wars that are happening right now.

Details

Book: Zlata’s Diary

Author: Zlata Filipović

Translator: Christina Pribichevich-Zorić

Publisher: Penguin Random House Children’s UK

Publishing Date: 05/06/1995

Author: Zlata Filipović

Zlata Filipović left Sarajevo in 1993 with her parents, for France, she then moved to Dublin two years later. She is now a film maker.

Translator: Christina Pribichevich-Zorić

Christina Pribichevich Zoric has translated more than thirty novels and short-story collections from Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian and French. She has worked as a broadcaster for the English Service of Radio Yugoslavia in Belgrade and the BBC in London and was the Chief of Conference and Language Services for the UN International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague.

A bit about me!

Here I am with my husband visiting one of our favourite places in the world, the Westonbirt Arboretum!

A bit about me, my name is Jess Andoh-Thayre. I am from Brixton, South London. I currently live in Cambodia. Before living here in Cambodia, I lived in Tanzania with my husband, who is a diplomat. I have also lived in Chile and Spain. I am a French, Spanish and English as an Additional Language (EAL) teacher. I recently qualified as a SENCo (Special Educational Needs Coordinator). After taking three years off to have a baby in a pandemic and also retrain, I have just returned to work as an Elementary Learning Support Teacher.