Safe Area Goražde: The War in Easten Bosnia 1992 – 1995 by Joe Sacco
Some people may claim this is stretching the term travel writing, but just because an extreme political or military situation is happening whilst you are there does not stop it being travel in my opinion. Joe Sacco visited with the people of Goražde, Bosnia, several times from 1995 – 1996 and Safe Area Goražde is the result.
Goražde was a designated UN safe haven, along with 5 other towns, including the now infamous Srebrenica. In practice this meant it was an enclave of Bosnian muslims, cut-off from everywhere else by Bosnian-Serbian troops. Isolated for 3 years, with pratically no supplies in or people out, Goražde was a town only half protected and almost completely forgotten.
In his book, Joe Sacco draws up the conversations he has had on his visits, mixing current interview images with interviewee-eye views of the stories they are remembering. The people come across as resilient, as they had to be, and as a result the book is not without humour. It is overall a very dark and upsetting read however, and one which will leave you upset and frustrated at the lack of political will of the international community.
Joe Sacco is a prolific writer and illustrator, and his other travel books include Palestine and Footnotes in Gaza.
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