War Torn

I have to say, to my shame, that I really knew very little about the war in Bosnia, so this book was informative to me. Written in a storyline that adds fact with fiction, it catches you up into an emotionally packed adventure, that will tug at your heartstrings and prick at your conscience. In this book we are shown the impact a war has on individuals and families, but we are also given a glimpse into traditions we know nothing about; yet things we all hold sacred in our own ways. A great story bringing to light truths we should always remember, but allow ourselves to forget, least we lose our comfort zone in life.Hate,love, war, adventure all packed into one moving novel. This is a thought provoking work and one you will remember for a long time. Recommended Shirley Johnson

Suffering, loss and the terrible toll that war takes on cities and people is at the center of this fast-moving, dramatic and tense novel by John Marks. Yes, the story is bold, austere and almost "journalistic" in style, and the pace almost never lets up, but at the same time there's an almost hurried attempt to get the story down at the expense of good, three-dimensional character development. War Torn is basically the story of two lovers Arthur, an investigative journalist from Texas who has been posted in Berlin to report on the reunification of East and West Berlin, and Marta, a Muslim from the city of Mostar. Both meet in Berlin and fall in love, but Marta, convinced by her husband that Mostar is the place to be, deserts Berlin and Arthur, and goes back to Mostar with her young son. What follows is a noble and terrifying account of how two people, who are still in love try to reconnect against the odds. As Mostar falls, and death and destruction surround Marta, Arthur almost gives her up for dead. But Marta proves to be more resilient. First though, she must survive in the "war torn" and ravaged city; she does this by becoming an interpreter for the German administrator, Hans Krieschler.Marks strikes a nice balance between an action orientated story line, and the demands of describing a part of the world undergoing monumental changes. Whether he's describing the horrors of war - the shattered buildings, the broken bridges, the violence in the name of religion. Or the UN soldiers in their "blue berets, the "aid workers picking up women," and the "photojournalists bumming smokes", Marks has a real talent for weaving historical fact into a fictional narrative. War Torn is a searing front-line depiction of the ways in which war can affect the lives of ordinary citizens. Berlin like Mostar was once at war too, and Marks draws some interesting parallels with the two cities. Arthur observes that not too long ago war had also been in Berlin, "one can still find the bullet holes in the walls" and there are probably "bones still beneath the concrete - a thousand restless ghosts for every inch of Berlin." War Torn looks with a discerning eye at the former Yugoslavia, and through Marta, we get a very personal look at the country, its history and its decay into civil war. Yugoslavia was a "young state, conceived in 1918" she says, but people have been living in this "young state" for hundreds of years. The problem is "young state, old peoples." Marks uses an effective journalistic lens to give us a clear and uncompromising view of this decay, and of the two cities - one unifying and the other disintegrating. War Torn is indeed a powerful piece of work. Michael

I absolutely loved this book. I found it to be the perfect combination of: 1) thought provoking, 2) educational about a time and place, and 3) simply a great story with well developed characters that you truly care for. In today's much too divided world there are lessons here for everyone.

Within this engrossing story of love and war in Berlin and Mostar, Yugoslavia, from 1989 to 1992, John Marks considers the subject of divided cities-and the damaging effects on the people who live in them. The Wall dividing East and West Berlin has just come down, and Germany is in the process of reunification, attempting to erase the invisible walls still dividing the people of Berlin and of Germany as a whole. Arthur Cape, an American reporter for Sense magazine, has been in Berlin since 1989, documenting the story of the reunification and the surprises which have accompanied it.On his way to a Halloween party in 1992, he sees a ghostly stranger and knows instinctively that this messenger comes with information about Marta, a former lover whom he has not seen or heard from in three years.Through Marta's story, the history of the ethnic unrest in Yugoslavia unfolds. The daughter of a movie star who has married three times, each time to someone of different ethnic background, Marta is a Muslim, though her sister Dubravka, who occasionally visits her in Berlin, is a Serb, whose allegiance is to the Christian Orthodox church. Her brother Mato is a lapsed Catholic. As the story alternates between Berlin and Mostar, and between Arthur and Marta, the reader observes the growing brutality among the various groups, with Marta's brother offering the chilling conclusion that there are only two kinds of people-"those who have slit the throat of another human being and those who haven't." In a unique and thought-provoking thematic twist, Marks draws parallels between what is happening in Yugoslavia and what has happened in Berlin.The novel gets off to a quick start with the appearance of the Halloween "revenant," and Marks's crisp prose and perfect, illustrative details advance the action and keep the story moving at breakneck speed. The peaceful reunification of Berlin offers a poignant contrast to the growing violence of Mostar, with Marks presenting a clear picture of the conflicts through the action, never allowing the complexities of historical background to overwhelm his story. Irony abounds, especially when a German, Hans Kreichler, becomes the European administrator of Mostar during a temporary cessation in the violence. Most of all, however, this is a moving love story about two fully drawn people for whom love and war exist on parallel planes. As they struggle to reconcile the tension between their hopes and disappointments, dreams and torments, and aspirations and earthly cares, the reader sees their struggle as a universal one-one waged by thoughtful individuals, enlightened governments, and philosophers and clerics the world over. Mary Whipple

In a tour de force that is both gripping and intelligent, Marks tells the story of star-crossed love in the war-torn Balkans. A Texas journalist falls in love with a Balkan woman. Problem is she's married, and her husband drags her from the safety of Berlin to the war-ravaged divided city of Mostar. It's never pedantic, the sense of place and accuracy of history is breathtaking, and it illuminates the conflict and how war and politics can impact the human heart.