SOURCE: Willens, Susan P. Review of The Balkan Express, by Slavenka Drakulic. Belles Lettres 9, no. 1 (fall 1993): 59-60.

In the following review, Willens praises Drakulic's combination of narrative and journalism to describe the war in The Balkan Express.

Croat and Serb, Zagreb and Belgrade, Milosovic and Tudjman—newspapers and TV bombard us with new names as the former Yugoslavia collapses in gunfire and blood. The Balkan Express, by Slavenka Drakulic explains how this latest war in Europe feels from the inside, how it eats away the inner life: “The war is like a monster … it grabs you by the throat … overtakes the inner self until one can scarcely recognize oneself any longer.” These 18 personal essays dramatize that terrible transformation.

At first, when the war begins to take shape, Drakulic comments philosophically about why her country has gone mad: “This society never had a proper chance to become a society...