Dealing with all the questions once the book is out and unchangeable, forces you to permanently give opinions about - in this case - sensible, challenging topics that you are basically only half the expert you would have to be if you wanted to explain yourself in a trustworthy, intelligent and helpful manner.

Never too late to learn a language. And the good literature to come with it.

A book is not only written - after it's finished it starts writing you, the writer. You become its notebook, its sheet of paper on which it forces you to think and rethink your original ideas, your topics, your research, actually everything.

Something as radical as a war can only be understood (if at all) through the collaboration of journalists, academia, artists and, of course, people.

FAQ regarding my book were not about my use of commas or how the images went berserk, but about the political situation in Bosnia, about guilt and shame, about victims and perpetrators, about reasons, arguments and beliefs that led to the conflict in the first place, etc. All of this needed and still needs answering and ongoing discussions, but I mostly felt overwhelmed and unqualified to articulate anything worth more than personal experiences of the siege, of fear and refuge - all the things which I wrote about anyway.

I just feel much more secure about whatever I write if I stand with one foot in reality - meaning if the stories I write about have a core of "this actually (could have) happened."

Dealing with all the questions once the book is out and unchangeable, forces you to permanently give opinions about - in this case - sensible, challenging topics that you are basically only half the expert you would have to be if you wanted to explain yourself in a trustworthy, intelligent and helpful manner.