Janine DiGiovanni

Book Reviews and Comments about MADNESS VISIBLE:

A stunning portrait of contemporary war ... It is a terrifying account' Independent
'One of our generation's finest foreign correspondents ... excellent' Daily Telegraph

DiGiovanni has written so much more than reports of battles waged, won or lost. It's an account of life lived in extremis ... Read this book and you may begin to understand what war looks like and feels like, or even smells like' Spectator

'If you read no other book about the Balkan wars, read this one' Philip Caputo

'DiGiovanni is superb - an extraordinarily brave war correspondent and a wonderful writer as well. What a combination ' William Shawcross

'Unforgettable... vivid, compassionate ... Few writers can match her evocations of individual suffering in wartime' Newsweek

'Powerful and moving ... diGiovanni's accounts of her time on the front lines are vivid and dramatic. She is a gifted and humane reporter, with a novelist's eye for detail ... a book of worth and purpose' Literary Review

'Janine diGiovanni has described war in a way that almost makes me think it never needs to be described again. This is it, modern war: If you don't want to know what it's really like, don't pick up this book. I can honestly say that I finished this book a wiser, more compassionate person than when I started' Sebastian Junger, author of The Perfect Storm

'DiGiovanni is a war reporter whose courage is matched only by her compassion for her subjects' Evening Standard

'Janine diGiovanni took ten years out of her life to report on all those terrible wars in the former Yugoslavia. She tells us what it was really like on the frontline - the squalor, the terror, the barbarity, and the randomness of death. But there was also comradeship, hope, glory and, occasionally, the triumph of the human spirit' Phillip Knightley

'Modern war has become ever more Satanic, and never more so than in the Balkans in the 1990s. Janine diGiovanni is our Virgil, guiding us through the circles of that man-made hell: Sarajevo, Kosovo, Pristina. Her depictions of the fighting recall the best correspondence to come out of the Spanish Civil War. Her portraits of the victims are moving, but she really shines in bringing to chilling life the perpetrators of ethnic cleansing - today's euphemism for genocide' Philip Caputo

'A searing chronicle of a decade's worth of ethnocide in the former Yugoslavia ... The tales she tells would do Martha Gellhorn proud, though they do not make for easy reading ... Wholly memorable, entirely upsettling: one of the best pieces of reportage to come from the Balkan abattoir' Kirkus Reviews

'An unflinching and often harrowing volume ... DiGiovanni survived her experiences to tell the tale, and she does so admirably. The lessons learned are ours to take away' Waterstone's Books Quarterly

'Gutsy ... harrowing and humane' Instyle

'Always compassionate, never sentimental, diGiovanni gives voice to the victims, perpetrators and architects of the conflict' Marie Claire

'DiGiovanni provides lucid historical background, deft sketches of the players, and unflinching accounts of the effects of war on its victims ... she's better, and braver, than most' Time Out

'A devastating memoir of the Balkans ... a harrowing firsthand account of a region's spiral into madness ... DiGiovanni has written a tragic book that vividly memorialises the millions who suffered in the name of religion, nationality and ego' Publishers Weekly

'Janine diGiovanni's fine book on the Yugoslav wars brings the personalities, tragedies and abominations of the conflict painfully to life ... DiGiovanni's is possibly the best journalist's book to come out of former Yugoslavia ... her truth is more powerful than his fiction ... she manages to convey the fear, boredom, and slivovica-soaked horror of the Yugoslav wars as few have done' Lara Marlowe, Irish Times

'Madness Visible is full of gripping reportage about the horrors of life during wartime ... Di Giovanni stands out in the pack of British war correspondents ... Not only does diGiovanni elicit shocking testimony from survivors, but her writing about their plights is especially moving' Alex Bellos, New York Newsday

'The veteran reporter has a keen eye for detail and dialogue ... diGiovanni comes into her own when recounting the earlier war in Bosnia' The Washington Post

'Powerful and disturbing ... a description of today's uneasy peace in the former Yugoslavia that should worry us all ... This book is fascinating on the effect of war on reporters. Are they hardened by what they see? DiGiovanni does not spare us the blood and guts ... here is a reporter whose sense of humanity has been deepened by her experience' Mail on Sunday

'In this important book Janine diGiovanni picks her way confidently across the no man's land of the female war correspondent ... there are few outsiders who better understand what has happened in the Balkans in our time...MADNESS VISIBLE is the story of all wars' Sara Wheeler, Guardian

'It is a powerful, passionate account, and well worth waiting for ... We feel her sense of betrayal and disenchantment ... the strength of this memoir lies in its understanding that there was no monopoly of suffering in these wars, and no monopoly of evil ... She returned time and time again to seek answers to some permanently troubling questions' Martin Bell, The Times

'It is compelling reportage at its best; grisly and depressing at times, of course, but also revealing' The Economist

'DiGiovanni offers a heartrending portrait of survivors salvaging their losses under the spectre of continuing civil unrest' Vogue

'She takes a sharp instrument and probes into the most tender places of those individuals caught up in and trapped by a tragedy...it is gripping' San Francisco Chronicle

'A standout among the many accounts of war in former Yugoslavia' Library Journal 'An impressive overview of the disintegration of Yugoslavia' Booklist

'Powerful ...Moving...Full of gripping reportage about the horrors of life during wartime' Newsday

'This in one of the best books written about war' Arizona Republic

'Illuminating...Moving...[Her] stream-of-consciousness approach...imbues the book with its quiet but undeniable emotional power... It hurts like hell to read these accounts of the agony, fear, despair, cruelty and madness suffered by victims on all sides of the Balkan conflicts ... [Despite the] gloom that pervades each page, these accounts remain compelling because of DiGiovanni's resolve to grasp each individual's frail sense of hope and shattered human dignity' San Antonio Express News

'DiGiovanni has covered every violent conflict since the Bosnian conflict in 1992 ... her book is set in Yugoslavia, but it is not just about Yugoslavia. It's a book very much about how people truly experience war. She has captured the essence of war, its horror and its brutality' Asbury Park Press

'A life of bullet-dodging, staring into mass graves and hanging around with jittery, pimply soldiers...diGiovanni's latest book centres on her experience in the Balkans in the nineties ... what it lacks in sweet romance, it makes up in passion...she's spent her career watching other people's stories unfold' Women's Wear Daily

'MADNESS VISIBLE encapsulates the integral aspects of a war correspondent's life - bravery and determination, discomfort and sheer bloody mindedness, terror and uncertainty...MADNESS VISIBLE is a salutary and essential read. Salutary because it makes you realise that the civilising effect of society is as thin as gossamer and can be lost so easily. DiGiovanni is painfully eloquent' The Resident

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