From Publishers Weekly
This is the dramatic story of a heroic journalistic feat. During the recent Bosnian Serb siege of Sarajevo, the city's Oslobodjenje newspaper, of which Kurspahic was editor-in-chief, hit the streets on schedule every day but one (May 14, 1992). This book is both a history of the paper dating back to the years before WWII and a personal account of getting the news out under the worst possible conditions. Beginning in April 1992 and continuing for more than three years, the Bosnian Serbs and their allies effectively bottled Sarajevo up and subjected it to regular, disastrous artillery and sniper attacks. During that time, the paper's circulation dropped from 80,000 to 3500 as enemy gunfire leveled the press building's towers and eventually demolished the entire building. Kurspahic, who came to the paper as a cub reporter at 16, not only tells how he and his beleaguered staff did it but also discusses earlier struggles: the paper's anti-Nazi past, the effort in 1990 to free it from Communist Party control, the subsequent moves to keep it independent of any nationalist faction?Croatian, Muslim, Serb. Despite all the drama, Kurspahic's story provides a level of detail that may not greatly interest general readers. Christopher Hitchens of the Nation magazine and Pulitzer Prize- winning journalist Roy Gutman contribute long and admiring introductory essays. Photos not seen by PW. Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
This remarkable book by the editor of Sarajevo's main newspaper, Oslobodjenje ("Liberation"), is a story of the publication's struggle for free expression against the assaults of Communists and nationalists and for its very survival during the city's horrific siege under Serb guns. It is also a tale of indomitable courage in the face of deprivation, destruction, and death as the paper became a metaphor of its staff's endurance and their city's ordeal. The author's commitment to the truth emerges in accounts both of Serbs who deserted to Bosnia's "Serb Republic" and of those blinded by "Muslim racism." Such values earned Kurspahic the highest awards in Western journalism, yet he finds a "sad irony" in the newspaper's achievement and his country's effective "partition" after the Dayton accords. This book nicely complements Tom Gjelten's Sarajevo Daily: A City and Its Newspaper Under Siege (LJ 2/1/95). Recommended for public and larger academic libraries.?Zachary T. Irwin, Pennsylvania State Univ.-ErieCopyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews
The gripping and poignant account of the survival of Sarajevo's daily newspaper and the abiding ideal of peaceful coexistence that it symbolizes. For over four years, working against material, financial, and personal obstacles (the paper was eventually produced out of the building's bomb shelter), the multiethnic staff of Oslobodjenje kept their paper going. But Kurspahi, its editor in chief during the war, does more than just narrate their story. He places his paper's struggle in the broader context of events in the former Yugoslavia. This was not a civil war, he argues, but one against civilians and their culture, a war against cosmopolitanism. An early chapter covers the initial phase of the paper's ``liberation,'' which saw its transformation from a Communist- controlled daily to one characterized by principles of liberalism and pluralism, and a commitment to peaceful coexistence. For the first time, its staff freely elected editors and selected the stories they would cover, including regular reports on events in other republics. At a time of poor communication and increasing political control, Kurspahi's paper provided perhaps the last true reflection of current events. Kurspahi captures how Sarajevo blossomed, becoming ``an arena for popular self-expression,'' an antidote to the growing chauvinism and intolerance in other republics. In the chapter on the paper in wartime, Kurspahi deftly interweaves the personal and professional, creating a clear parallel between the enormous sacrifices made by Oslobodjenje's staff to keep the paper going and the heroic efforts of Bosnia's citizens to defend their homes, neighbors, and ideals. In the process, he presents the dramatic and often tragic struggles of colleagues, friends, strangers, and public figures. The war may be over and the country divided, but, Kurspahi asserts, a unified Bosnia and its culture will survive as long as the spirit of Oslobodjenje ``defends her essence and keeps faith with memory.'' -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Independent Publisher
Since peace makes poor reading, the collapse of Yugoslavia and the resulting Balkan war in Bosnia provides an ample supply of stories of tragedy and courage, hope and despair. During the three year siege of Sarajevo one story stands out as a heroic example of journalism at its best. Sarajevo's only newspaper, Oslobodjenje (Liberation), besieged, battered, and under fire, never missed a day of publication. Its staff of Serbs, Croats, Muslims, and Jews were guided by their grimly defiant and dynamic editor, Kemal Kurspahic, who told them, "As long as Sarajevo exists this newspaper will publish every day." Kurspahic's memoir covers his years as editor (1988-1994), but focuses on the ordeal of the brutal, bloody, and uncertain years of Sarajevo's encirclement by Serbian nationalist forces bent on the city's total destruction. As expected, Kurspahic is a gifted writer, a journalist with a flair for style, clarity and insight. His story is not just newsprint. It is a story of men and women and a newspaper fighting for survival, a story of dedication and human spirit. The staff and reporters of Oslobodjenje endured the same dangers and privations as did all Sarajevo's citizens - hunger, thirst, disease, cold, snipers, shellfire, wounds and death. They also published a daily newspaper despite the Serbs' best efforts to blast them out of business. When their newspaper building was destroyed by artillery fire, the staff published the paper in an underground bunker, distributing it throughout the city themselves, pursued by snipers' bullets and mortar barrages. Five staff members were killed and 20 wounded. Still, throughout those dark days, the paper survived and served (as it still does) as "the voice of multiethnic Bosnia." This is a thoughtful and compelling tale of the tragedy of ethnic war and of journalism the way it should be.

The Nation, Ian Williams
...remarkably engaging and readable... Almost as interesting as the professional details of how to produce a newspaper under fire, without money, fuel or newsprint, is Kurspahic's honest depiction of the stresses of communal conflict.

Card catalog description
"No journalist would argue with the claim of Bosnia's principal morning paper, Oslobodjenje to be Newspaper of the Year," commented The Guardian of London after the BBC and Granada Television announced the prestigious award. "This morning's issue is the 319th to emerge from the nuclear shelter beneath the rubble of its Sarajevo press center." This is the memoir of Oslobodjene's Editor-in-Chief, Kemal Kurspahic. It is an account of his "three years in Sarajevo." First, it is the story of an editor, elected by his staff, successfully battling with his colleagues to take control of their own newspaper during the final years of Yugoslavia. It is also the story of how the paper survived and triumphed against a crude coalition of nationalist parties in their attempt to destroy its editorial independence following Bosnia's first democratic elections. Finally, Kurspahic's memoir enters the years of genocide in Bosnia and chronicles the resistance of a people and a newspaper to the rebirth of modern European fascism. By its own example of maintaining a multiethnic staff of Serbs, Croats, and Muslims who insist that as Bosnians they will never accept the ideology of apartheid in their country, the paper has stood as a poignant counterforce to nationalist bigotry and external efforts to partition the country along ethnic lines.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"No journalist would argue with the claim of Bosnia's principal morning paper, Oslobodjenje to be Newspaper of the Year," commented The Guardian of London after the BBC and Granada Television announced the prestigious award. "This morning's issue is the 319th to emerge from the nuclear shelter beneath the rubble of its Sarajevo press center." This is the memoir of Oslobodjene's Editor-in-Chief, Kemal Kurspahic. It is an account of his "three years in Sarajevo." First, it is the story of an editor, elected by his staff, successfully battling with his colleagues to take control of their own newspaper during the final years of Yugoslavia. It is also the story of how the paper survived and triumphed against a crude coalition of nationalist parties in their attempt to destroy its editorial independence following Bosnia's first democratic elections. Finally, Kurspahic's memoir enters the years of genocide in Bosnia and chronicles the resistance of a people and a newspaper to the rebirth of modern European fascism. By its own example of maintaining a multiethnic staff of Serbs, Croats, and Muslims who insist that as Bosnians they will never accept the ideology of apartheid in their country, the paper has stood as a poignant counterforce to nationalist bigotry and external efforts to partition the country along ethnic lines.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

This is the dramatic story of a heroic journalistic feat. During the recent Bosnian Serb siege of Sarajevo, the city's Oslobodjenje newspaper, of which Kurspahic was editor-in-chief, hit the streets on schedule every day but one (May 14, 1992). This book is both a history of the paper dating back to the years before WWII and a personal account of getting the news out under the worst possible conditions. Beginning in April 1992 and continuing for more than three years, the Bosnian Serbs and their allies effectively bottled Sarajevo up and subjected it to regular, disastrous artillery and sniper attacks. During that time, the paper's circulation dropped from 80,000 to 3500 as enemy gunfire leveled the press building's towers and eventually demolished the entire building. Kurspahic, who came to the paper as a cub reporter at 16, not only tells how he and his beleaguered staff did it but also discusses earlier struggles: the paper's anti-Nazi past, the effort in 1990 to free it from Communist Party control, the subsequent moves to keep it independent of any nationalist factionCroatian, Muslim, Serb. Despite all the drama, Kurspahic's story provides a level of detail that may not greatly interest general readers. Christopher Hitchens of the Nation magazine and Pulitzer Prize- winning journalist Roy Gutman contribute long and admiring introductory essays. Photos not seen by PW. (Apr.)

Library Journal