Slavenka Drakulić has just published a new book – Rat je svugdje isti (War is The Same Everywhere) in Fraktura publishing house, Zagreb. For now it is avaliable in Croatian only.
Amid another war on European soil and many other wars worldwide, the book War Is The Same Everywhere brings a series of essays about the war, published in various publications from 1991 to the present day.
These essays will expose you to a range of emotions and make you think about how it is possible that, with so much technological and scientific progress, we still cannot eradicate war and killing.
The book cover was designed by Mirko Ilić, and here you can see Slavenka with the original artwork made for the cover.
While reading this book, we geta a glimpse of a series of war situations seen from the so-called frog’s perspective, the point of view of ordinary people. Refugees who are trying to find their way in a foreign, unwelcoming country, mothers in fear for their sons, raped women who chose not to remain silent, ordinary people transformed into cruel war criminals under the right circumstances…
After The Balkan Express and They would never hurt a fly, Slavenka Drakulić once again shows that conflicts begin with words, indoctrination, and sowing nationalist divisions – and this keeps repeating itself like a nightmare. Social divisions and conflicts are not easy to understand. But we are obliged to question and analyze them in order not to repeat the same mistakes over and over again.
Essays previously published in foreign publications were translated into Croatian by Hana Samaržija, Rujana Jeger, Anita Peti-Stantić i Ivana Ramljak.