Published for the first time in English, a book that sparked controversy throughout Europe views the Balkan conflict from a Serbian perspective that includes a heated critique of the Western media.
| |||||||||||||||
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
In Europe, where it has been seen as pro-Serbian, journalist Peter Handke's meditative essay on ethnic conflict in the former Yugoslavia has been stirring up a great deal of controversy. But Handke, a German and a longtime resident of Paris, disavows nationalist partisanship. Instead, he works to unravel the tangles of ethnic hatred, snarled over generations and centuries, to discover whether peace is possible in the Balkans, and he reserves his enmity for the European media, which, he maintains, has systematically misunderstood the collapse of the former communist world. This book is impressionistic and short--you can read it over coffee in about an hour--but also deeply thoughtful, and deeply unsettling.
From Publishers Weekly
Handke argues that the Western news media have unfairly portrayed the Serbs as brutal aggressors in the Yugoslav war while presenting Croats as sympathetic victims. The eminent German novelist/ playwright/essayist charges that the Croats started the war by marching militia into Serbian villages, and he blames Germany for its haste in recognizing the newly formed state of Croatia, whose constitution designated 600,000 Serbs living in Croatia as a second-class ethnic group. Born to German-Slovenian parents near the border of the former Yugoslavia, Handke traveled through Bosnia and Serbia in late 1995 accompanied by two Serbian-born friends. Partly a poetic, sensitive travelogue, partly a nervously defensive polemic, this slender volume touched off a firestorm of controversy in Europe, where Handke was accused by critics of attempting to minimize Serbian war crimes. Because of its self-consciously literary style and its hairsplitting analysis of European journalism, films and TV news coverage, the book will probably have less impact here.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Lyrical questions,
This review is from: A Journey to the Rivers: Justice for Serbia (Hardcover)
I know nothing about Serbia beyond what the press commonly reports. This book is the first I have read about that country. It makes no apologies for Serbian atrocities. It does, however, lyrically call journalists and journalism to task. Written in German in late 1995 for a European audience, this 82-page book applies equally to the U.S. I speak as a former journalist who, during 25 years of largely national U.S. writing, plumbed every side to every question before reaching conclusions--always over-reporting to find nuances, and often reaching conclusions only as I wrote. It was a handicap not easily overcome. That is not how many, perhaps even most, journalists work. The fault is built into the system. Editors expect reporters to have an angle before they present an idea. Without a hook, assignments are often not made. Editors will deny it, but they expect reporters to have reached some conclusion before they begin reporting, and to report to prove their points. In other words, they routinely ask journalists to put the cart before the horse--an especially troubling phenomenon in this era of political correctness. Reporters say they are after truth and good. Most are in fact after the big game, the story to make them famous, a kill. Nowadays CNN hires television actors as news anchors. You get the picture. Ironically, on big stories covered by throngs--which I intensely disliked and avoided, and which of course include wars--reporters tend to mimic each other, to sit around after they file, bragging about their prowess. The largest braggarts are also often the least talented. Institutionalized problems have a depressing effect on journalism. Few stories are black and white. But most present that illusion, although they are products of very little, if any, deductive thought. Certainly, nuances do not surface in short sound bites feeding most news wires. Peter Handke seems to know all this--and a great deal of philosophy. Serbia aside, this book shows, in near-poetic language, that things are not always as journalists portray them. For that alone, Handke's tiny volume is worth its weight in gold. Alyssa A. Lappen
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
finely crafted magic,
By
This review is from: A Journey to the Rivers: Justice for Serbia (Hardcover)
Once again, Handke tackles a difficult issue with masterful language. Upon its publication, the book received numerous negative responses by many critics who clearly had not read the piece. This carefully constructed book never "sides" with anyone, instead it attempts to seek out questions rather than answers. It is a dense difficult piece that is made very accessible by Scott Abbott's fine translation. I strongly recommend it and urge you to read it with an open mind.
20 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
2 million Serbs died fighting the Nazis,
By A Customer
This review is from: A Journey to the Rivers: Justice for Serbia (Hardcover)
German literary genius Peter Handke should be commended for setting the record straight.Negative comments here by self proclaimed experts on Balkan and Serbian history are ridiculous. Comparing Serbs, who fought en-masse against the Nazis, to their killers is nothing but a pure insult to the intelligence of any decent person, especially since most Muslims, Albanians, and Croats fought for Hitler. I am more proud than anything to be a Serb, and I am proud of the German intellectual Peter Handke for his show of courage. Mr. Handke has put his own life and reputation on the line for the Serbian people, Serbia loves you Mr. Handke. Thank-you.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
