The Suitcase: Refugee Voices from Bosnia and Croatia (Paperback)

~ Julie Mertus (Author), Jasmina Tesanovic (Author), Habiba Metikos (Author), Rada Boric (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

YA. This collection of memoirs provides a stirring and disturbing picture of what reality is all about for those people fleeing the disaster of Bosnia and Croatia. Divided into five sections, the translated accounts of the real victims of the war add lasting images to those seen on television or captured in photographs. The suitcase contains some 75 stories of these people, mostly women and children, as they flee the war-zone conditions, long for home, settle into life as refugees or displaced persons, and attempt to make a new life away from all they had formerly known. A one-line description of the narrator (age, name, and location) precedes each selection, and a short afterword explains or extends the individual story. Because of the oppressive topic, this collection is difficult to read from cover to cover; however, it serves as excellent primary-source material for any research on conditions in the former Yugoslavia or on refugees throughout the world. The narratives are readable; a single black-and-white map at the front includes many of the towns, villages, and cities cited in the text. Photographs confirm the devastating state of life for these individuals.?Dottie Kraft, formerly at Fairfax County Public Schools, VA
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

In this anthology, refugees from the civil wars in the former Yugoslavia tell their stories to relief workers. More than 75 individuals were interviewed in refugee camps from Pakistan to Canada or in their new homes. Predominantly but not exclusively Bosnian Muslims and mostly women who left Bosnia between spring 1992 and late 1995, they tell stories grouped into five areas: leaving home, dreams of return, daily life in a camp, children's stories, and starting over in a new country. Concluding essays by the editors discuss the relief needs of women, specifically in terms of Muslim women as refugees; conditions afflicting all refugees (regardless of origin or ethnic identity); and the duration of the refugee crisis in the former Yugoslavia. This collection is similar to Anna Cataldi's Letters from Sarajevo (LJ 6/15/94) in its multiple stories, each contributing to the mosaic.?Marcia L. Sprules, Council on Foreign Relations Lib., New York
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 267 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press (January 20, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520206347
• ISBN-13: 978-0520206342
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #269,101 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Poignant and Powerful Voices of Refugees, March 10, 1999

By	richard_t "richard_t" (Overseas) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

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Who are refugees? People who fled the wars in Bosnia and Croatia are scattered in Missouri and Ontario, Germany and Austria, Israel and Pakistan, and they are displaced to other towns within their own countries. They are not voluntary emigrants whose bags are packed with hopes in search of a dream. They may be wealthy, or at least they may once have been. The refugee cleaning floors for minimum wage may have been a surgeon in her own life. The eight-year old girl may be the only one in her family who has learned English, so it is only she who can speak with government officials and store clerks. Refugees are anyone and everyone. They are professionals and farmers and little boys and criminals and poets, but mostly they are women and children and the elderly.

The Suitcase gives voice to the people "without context". They speak of their dreams and their losses. Their poems are here and sad scenes of small things washed away forever by tides of war. "War taught us a lot. How the fear makes people irrationally greedy. It is difficult to resist becoming greedy. It is almost like an instinct. To possess, to hold on to something. In shelters, to hold on to somebody. To hold on to your prayer, even if you never prayed before". Some refugees long only for the day when they can return to their hometowns to begin to reglue the shards of their old lives. Some can speak only of Bosnia's beauty or the pleasures of a cup of coffee with friends.

Others close and lock the door on the past with determination. "We arrived here safely. Everyone is fine. Please do not write us or try to contact us. We do not want to be reminded of anything", reads the postcard sent by a Bosnian family after they arrived in Canada in 1994.

The book is well-edited and well-organized along five broad themes. These are followed by three powerful afterwords, of which Dubravka Ugresic's is the strongest as she muses on the fact that the people of the Balkans are one people. Divided by the same language, they look alike, and yet "not one generation in the Balkans manages to escape war, in every family there is at least one killer and one killed, new life only begins on somebody else's dead head." There is one minor error (p.11, Vukovar was attacked in 1991, not 1992).

The Suitcase rings powerfully and true. The simple message here is that refugees are people, and the lives they lead are but a shot away for us all.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars EXPERTLY EDITED AND BOTH A TRAGEDY AND DELIGHT TO READ, September 13, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: The Suitcase: Refugee Voices from Bosnia and Croatia (Hardcover)

The Suitcase is a wonderful and sorrowful journey into the hearts of an oppressed and victimized land. the personal stories are of those who, throughout history have had no voice. Any person with a sense of history will surely feel the magnitude of the plight of a refugee.

5.0 out of 5 stars The Suitcase, July 22, 2009

By	Simon M. Lam (CA, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is a very good book about the refugees from the Bosnia war. The authors have a collection of thoughts, poems, and stories from the refugees that were driven away from their homes. The horrible living conditions some had to go through was horrifying. The thoughts and stories make you feel what they have went through. It is very touching and moving from what the refugees have to say. You can tell the authors put in a lot of work into this book.