When you're a refugee, no matter who you are, nobody asks, 'How are you?' This book asks refugees from Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia this simple question. Here, refugees tell their own stories about their lives as refugees in their own voices, through stories, essays, poems, and letters. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

In this anthology, refugees from the civil wars in the former Yugoslavia tell their stories to relief workers. More than 75 individuals were interviewed in refugee camps from Pakistan to Canada or in their new homes. Predominantly but not exclusively Bosnian Muslims and mostly women who left Bosnia between spring 1992 and late 1995, they tell stories grouped into five areas: leaving home, dreams of return, daily life in a camp, children's stories, and starting over in a new country. Concluding essays by the editors discuss the relief needs of women, specifically in terms of Muslim women as refugees; conditions afflicting all refugees (regardless of origin or ethnic identity); and the duration of the refugee crisis in the former Yugoslavia. This collection is similar to Anna Cataldi's Letters from Sarajevo (LJ 6/15/94) in its multiple stories, each contributing to the mosaic.‘Marcia L. Sprules, Council on Foreign Relations Lib., New York From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

YA‘This collection of memoirs provides a stirring and disturbing picture of what reality is all about for those people fleeing the disaster of Bosnia and Croatia. Divided into five sections, the translated accounts of the real victims of the war add lasting images to those seen on television or captured in photographs. The suitcase contains some 75 stories of these people, mostly women and children, as they flee the war-zone conditions, long for home, settle into life as refugees or displaced persons, and attempt to make a new life away from all they had formerly known. A one-line description of the narrator (age, name, and location) precedes each selection, and a short afterword explains or extends the individual story. Because of the oppressive topic, this collection is difficult to read from cover to cover; however, it serves as excellent primary-source material for any research on conditions in the former Yugoslavia or on refugees throughout the world. The narratives are readable; a single black-and-white map at the front includes many of the towns, villages, and cities cited in the text. Photographs confirm the devastating state of life for these individuals.‘Dottie Kraft, formerly at Fairfax County Public Schools, VA From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.