This novella of only 80 pages is about one Croat in the Croatian Serbian civil war of the 90s. I am choosing 5 stars, "amazing", because that describes my feelings better than four stars, I really "liked it". I have a hard time saying I LIKED this book, but the book is amazing and excellently executed. You are there with him in Croatia - in Dubrovnik, in Split, in the small villages along the Dalmatian coastline, on the islands. The writing suberbly conjures the landscape of Croatia - its beauty, its harsh stone shorelines and the startlingly blue water.Astoundingly beautifully written. But the Croat is half dead, and you feel that too. He is a soldier, and you are too. I know I would not last one second in a prison. This book has brought me closer to being in a war than I hope I ever will be. I have been in Croatia. I have been in these villages, in Split and in Dubrovnik, one of the most beautiful places on earth. It was completely restored after the war with EU money. It is a teeny little white marble gem of a city, surrounded by sparkling blue water. Clothes lines cross the alleys above your head. Underwear, flowered house-dresses and jeans flutter in the wind. It all came back to me. We visited a small museum in Dubrovnik about the war, but this book said so much more. It puts the reader there - in an unbelievably gorgeous place in an unbelievably terrible war.
