Zlata's Diary

One of the most harrowing aspects of the Bosnian War is the way in which it alienates Zlata from her sense of reality. Repeatedly, Zlata tries to make sense of the politics and ethnic tension that both spark and sustain the war, and she always ends up frustrated that those in power could believe any political outcome worth the death and destruction. For Zlata, fighting over a city that is torn apart, burned, without gas and electricity, and full of traumatized citizens is the definition of absurd.

Zlata’s sense of the absurdity of war first manifests in the tone of shock that the politics she has been roundly dismissing since November of 1991 could have led to war. On April 18, 1992, she writes with a sense of disbelief, “This really is WAR,” (35), the capitalization an apparent effort to convince herself of the war’s reality. Later entries employ rhetorical questioning similarly, such as when she writes, “Is it possible I will never see Nina again,” (43) in reference to a shell that fell on the park, once a safe and welcoming place, and killed an innocent child with no power or