SOURCE: Mitchison, Amanda. “Into the Dark.” New Statesman and Society 6, no. 237 (29 January 1993): 47.

In the following review, Mitchison lauds The Balkan Express for vividly delineating a war's effects on everyday life.

Slavenka Drakulic's collection of autobiographical essays about the effect of the Yugoslavian war on everyday life [Balkan Express: Fragments from the Other Side,] is named after an excruciating train trip the author took from Vienna to Zagreb. She shares a compartment with two Yugoslavs. No one will speak for fear that their accent will disclose their ethnic origin, no one can take a newspaper out of their bag without revealing their allegiance. Even if the travellers did feel chatty, there is nothing to talk about except the war—an impossible, unacceptable subject for conversation between strangers.

So, as the train bumps along, the three passengers sit, knees jostling, looking out the window mutely. Yet, Drakulic observes, the silence...