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Title details for Zlata's Diary by Zlata Filipovic - Available

Zlata's Diary

A Child's Life in Wartime Sarajevo: Revised Edition

by Zlata Filipovic
Dorota Puzio
Audiobook
2 of 2 copies available
Borrow Listen to a sample Listen to a sample
2 of 2 copies available
The child's diary that awakened the conscience of the world

When Zlata’s Diary was first published at the height of the Bosnian conflict, it became an international bestseller and was compared to The Diary of Anne Frank, both for the freshness of its voice and the grimness of the world it describes. It begins as the day-to-day record of the life of a typical eleven-year-old girl, preoccupied by piano lessons and birthday parties. But as war engulfs Sarajevo, Zlata Filipovic becomes a witness to food shortages and the deaths of friends and learns to wait out bombardments in a neighbor’s cellar. Yet throughout she remains courageous and observant. The result is a book that has the power to move and instruct readers a world away.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    September 17, 2008

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781598877267
      • File size: 45088 KB
      • Duration: 01:33:55

  • Languages

    • English

  • Levels

    • Lexile® Measure: 640
    • Text Difficulty: 2-3

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Eleven-year-old Zlata Filipovic describes her life in Sarajevo as the clouds of war build, advance and consume her city. The diary is a powerful and moving document and has been released in print and audio simultaneously. Dorota Puzio, a native of Poland, reads with a soft Eastern European accent and the emotional intensity that the diary requires. Her clear pronunciation helps the listener with unfamiliar names. She captures the growth Zlata experiences as she leaves her protected childhood behind and begins to live the day-to-day hardship and deprivation of a city under siege. Zlata's Diary is a poignant plea for peace and a testament to the futility and waste of war. This sensitive production allows the reader to hear a young girl who cries out for peace. L.R.S. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from January 31, 1994
      A graphic firsthand look at the war in Sarajevo by a Croatian girl whose personal world has collapsed, this vivid, sensitive diary sounds an urgent and compelling appeal for peace. Filipovic begins her precocious journal in autumn 1991 as a contented 10-year-old preoccupied with piano and tennis lessons and saturated with American movies, TV shows, books and rock music. Soon the bombs start falling; her friends are killed by shrapnel or snipers' bullets; her family's country house burns down, and they subsist on UN food packages, without gas, electricity or water, as thousands of Sarajevans die. Filipovic, whose circle of friends included Serbs, Croats and Muslims, blames the former Yugoslavia's politicians for dividing ethnic groups and playing hell with people's lives. She and her parents escaped to Paris, and her diary, originally published in Croat by UNICEF, was reissued in France and has already been much written about in the U.S. Photos not seen by PW. 200,000 first printing; film rights to Universal; first serial to Newsweek; author tour

    • Library Journal

      May 15, 1994
      The harsh realities of the Bosnian conflict are brought to life in this chronicle. Begun in late 1991 when Zlata was ten, the typical musings of a young schoolgirl confiding in her diary are increasingly overtaken by accounts of the horrors of life in besieged Sarajevo. All vestiges of normal life disappear: schools close, electricity and gas are cut off, food and water become scarce, and Zlata becomes a virtual prisoner in the least vulnerable room of the family flat. As friends and family members are killed in the conflict, Zlata describes the events that have made her a "child without a childhood." This plea for help from an innocent victim is enhanced by the authentic Slavic voice of narrator Dorota Puzio. Recommended.-Linda Bredengerd, Hanley Lib., Univ. of Pittsburgh, Bradford, Pa.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Eleven-year-old Zlata, growing up in the beautiful city of Sarajevo, adores her school, her friends, pizza, rock music and holidays. Her lively interests are meticulously recorded in her diary. Then, in 1992, before her twelfth birthday, life becomes the long, dreary struggle of the Bosnian war. In portraying the young diarist, Moore perfectly captures each nuance of feeling: her exuberance, pity or rage. Grieving for her stolen childhood, Zlata becomes intensely present in this flawless reading. The Bosnian girl has much to say to the world, and Moore gives her convincing voice. We would do well to listen. S.B.S. Winner of AUDIOFILE Earphones Award (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      January 30, 1995
      Ten-year-old Croatian Filipovic's graphic, firsthand account of life in embattled Sarajevo was a nine-week PW bestseller. Photos.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

Levels

  • Lexile® Measure:640
  • Text Difficulty:2-3

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