So Like Fire

This work is set during the Bosnian war of 1992 - '95, yet it is not concerned with the politics of those who led their people down the road to war, nor of the reactions (or lack thereof) of the Western powers. It deals with the impact that these events had on the lives of thousands of ordinary people as they joined the world's twenty seven million refugees. It is an attempt to look at the effects of this war from a human point of view, and most of all to try to show the realities of the world of the dispossessed. What is that particular state of being, that unique state of loss, which we neatly classify as 'being a refugee.' Some people might find the format of this book a little unusual and confusing at first: you will find factual description, personal anecdotes, actual letters, poetry and narrative woven together to form a picture of the lives of those damaged by the conflict. Interwoven with all of that, reflecting and echoing all that is happening on the larger stage of war and flight, is the kernel of a love story. In this way it reflects real life; with our understanding of an event being built up through a whole range of observations, media coverage and hearsay, and creating an overall impression which is formed through both emotional and intellectual stimuli. You no doubt read the newspaper reports and saw the television footage at the time; these are the lives which lie behind those images. It is not a book that should be read as a novel, for the stories recounted here are true ones: it is the condensed and concentrated essence of an experience.