Safe Area Gorazde: The War in Eastern Bosnia 1992-1995 - Hardcover

Sacco, Joe

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1560973927 ISBN 13: 9781560973928

Publisher: Fantagraphics, 2000

Synopsis

Comic strips reveal the lives of those living in the Muslim enclave of Gorazde during the Bosian war, describing how they survived Serbian attacks that left them without access to the outside world, electricity, or running water.

About this title

Review:

Safe Area Gorazde is a harrowing documentary comic destined to become a classic of war reporting. In the waning days of the Bosnian war, Joe Sacco, the cartoonist behind the acclaimed Palestine, made several visits to Gorazde, a UN "safe area" that had been repeatedly attacked by Serb forces. He interviewed survivors of the Serb siege and assembled their recollections. Sacco depicts the atrocities of the war in simple, restrained panels, but his attention to detail is everywhere, from the accurate renderings of mortar scars on the landscape to the history lessons carefully embedded throughout the comic.

Sacco never descends into sensationalism or exploitation of the war's victims, but instead adopts a subjective gaze that places readers in hiding spots from which they can only catch glimpses of the murders and rapes. Sacco leaves the particulars of these crimes up to the imagination of his readers, which is appropriate enough given the unthinkable nature of what took place in Gorazde.

The real impact of Safe Area lies in Sacco's immersion in the daily life of Gorazde. While other journalists left Gorazde as soon as they had the clips they needed, Sacco lived in the town for weeks at a time, becoming a vicarious resident. Although the conflict was largely over by this point, Gorazde was still surrounded and Sacco was an eyewitness to his friends' struggle not only to survive but also to maintain their sanity.

Safe Area is not just a catalogue of horrors and a condemnation of international indifference; it's also a moving portrayal of the human capacity to endure almost any hardship. Sacco refuses to fall into any clichés about the triumph of the human spirit here--the people of Gorazde themselves reject such notions--but he does offer up Safe Area as a testament to its survival. --Peter Darbyshire, Amazon.ca

Review:

Sacco's detailed, personal reporting captures his subject matter more convincingly than photographs or Christiane Amanpour.

Harrowing and bleakly humorous, Sacco's account of life during the Balkan conflict is a timeless portrait of ordinary people caught in desperate circumstances. It's also a work of genius in an unlikely genre: journalism in comic book form.

Joe Sacco is a unique figure in modern comics: there is no one else who combines sheer cartooning chops with a newspaper reporter's sensibility and instincts in quite the same way.... an especially powerful document of the effects of war. --Ed Howard ""The Best Comics of the Decade" "

Graphic in every sense of the term, Sacco 's account of everyday life in a city under siege puts one of the twentieth century 's least understood catastrophes in perspective; it 's the best argument around for comics as a journalistic medium.

Graphic in every sense of the term, Sacco's account of everyday life in a city under siege puts one of the twentieth century's least understood catastrophes in perspective; it's the best argument around for comics as a journalistic medium.

Published soon after the conflict that it documents, Safe Area Gorazde is an intense reading experience and an active call for the condemnation of tribal and international leaders who put politics ahead of humanity. --Suzette Chan"

[Demonstrates] how brilliantly comics can serve as reportage.

Graphic in every sense of the term, Sacco s account of everyday life in a city under siege puts one of the twentieth century s least understood catastrophes in perspective; it s the best argument around for comics as a journalistic medium."

Joe Sacco is an engaging and direct writer, but above all, he is a good journalist. Comics just happen to be the outlet for his reportage... [he is] a master of the unique medium of comics journalism.--William Jones

About this edition

• Publisher: Fantagraphics
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 1560973927
• ISBN 13: 9781560973928
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 230