Customer Reviews

Sarajevo Self-Portrait: The View From Inside

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At a quick lookthrough Sarajevo Selfportrait looks like any other warstory because you tend to fixate on the photos of graves and blood - but after reading the photographers introductions and seeing all the other photos of everyday life in a city under siege this book stays with you for a long time. Without being sentimental or sensationalizing it takes you on a heartwrenching journey down bombed out streets and sniper warnings. After listening to international news and seeing pressphotos from Bosnia for a long time this books gives you a chance to get a realistic and sometimes even humorous look at how to not only survive but live with terror everyday.

I recently came across this book and a testament to its power is that I am not personally or particularly involved or interested in the Sarajevo conflict but found myself deeply impacted by these photos and accompanying text. I found this to be a wonderfully original idea--to have a compilation of photos from native photographers as opposed to the standard international reporters. It gave a unique perspective.

The killing fields of Bosnia, like so many wars, attracted the world's most renowned journalists. But of all of the war correspondents who covered the war in Bosnia, none have depicted the tragedy, suffering and heroism of war as honestly as Leslie Fratkin - and that's because Fratkin had the foresight to realize that no outsider could tell the story of Sarajevo as well as Sarajevans. Fratkin, an accomplished photographer in her own right, arrived in Bosnia to cover the war and simply set down her camera. She spent the next five years tracking down Bosnian photographers, who now live all over the world, looking at their pictures and listening to their stories. Sarajevo Self-Portrait is the culmination of her efforts. It tells the story of nine Bosnian photographers as they chronicled the destruction of their own country. Through a series of extensive interviews, which accompany their bodies of work, we hear how they struggled to hold their lenses still as their friends and families were struck down by snipers' bullets, how they schemed to smuggle film into the city through and underground tunnel, and how at times they used their won urine instead of developing chemicals to make their prints. At times tear-jerking, and at other times gut-wrenchingly comical, Sarajevo Self-Portrait is one of the best, and certainly the most sensitive book to come out of the war. Anyone who wants to understand the human side of that war should buy this book.

I love this book. Great concept - it's not about some foreign Magnum photographers coming in to Sarajevo for a few days and publishing a book but the exact opposite! It's Sarajevo photographers portraing their country going through horrible change.
This is really a great and unique book. Double thumbs up for the author and photographers. I think they did a wonderful job!

I purchased this book for my father who recently travelled to Sarajevo. The photos and stories were exactly what I was hoping for - personal and touching. It is a very moving collection of work. I would recommend to anyone interested in this region.