Diary of an Albanian in Belgrade

BELGRADE, March.26 – on the day commemorating the start of NAT bombardments in Serbia, which would put a gradual end to Milosevic’s grip on power and a start to the solving of the Kosovo issue, an Albanian journalist from Kosovo which has chosen Belgrade as his living city promoted his book, “Diary of an Albanian in Belgrade.” Conceived as an accurate account of the developments during those terrible days, Fahri Musliu has no spared the psychological impressions and the sufferings eh had to go through. Some of this pain eh shared with all the other inhabitants of the city. The rest was specific to his status, in the “enemy city” of the time. A particularly worthy book with the perspective of the insider, Musliu’s diary, recounts experiences with other Serbian people, friends, colleagues and threaten-ers during the bombardment days.
The book promotion was attended by several publishers, journalists, law experts and members of the cultural elite in Belgrade. Some of them, friends of the author have commented positively on the book’s sincere approach. Mihailo Mihailovic expressed his regret that the biter rhetoric so wonderfully exposed in the book has not changed much since then. The politics has been criticized also by Radmillo Klaic who said that the book carries a strong peaceful message for the cessation of hostility between two people.
The play writer Philip David said that the diary seems like a photographic shot of the times and thus is particularly important. The book brings a new perspective of events unknown before, common to both Albanians and Serbians at the time. By inserting direct dialogues with common people in the book the author has created a dichotomy between everyday concerns of people and politicians.
The book is composed of two parts. In the first one the author has included the reports send to Voice of America when a more comprehensive political analysis is coupled with a view of the tragic satiation of civilians. The second part is the minute diary of an Albanian journalist living in the city. The book is interesting because the author has lived a two sided experience with a double concern of being an Albanian and a bombarded citizen. The saga of his family in Kosovo and his own in Belgrade combine to give a powerful human story, the first one for Albanians to recount the bombardment days in Serbia.