Zlata Filipovic
Zlata Filipović is a Bosnian-Croat writer and author of the book Zlata's Diary.
From 1991 to 1993, she wrote in her diary (called "Mimy") about the horrors of war in Sarajevo, through which she was living. Some news agencies and media outlets labeled her the "Anne Frank of Sarajevo". Unlike Frank, however, Zlata and her family all survived and escaped to Paris in 1993 where they stayed for a year. She attended St. Andrew's College, Dublin senior school, going on to graduate from the University of Oxford in 2001 with a BA in human sciences, and now lives in Dublin, Ireland where she also studied at Trinity College Dublin.
Zlata has continued to write as she wrote the Foreword to The Freedom Writers Diary and having co-edited Stolen Hearts: Young People's War Diaries, From World War I to Iraq. She appeared on the talk show Tout le monde en parle on 19 November 2006.
In 2011 she produced the short film Stand Up! for a BeLoNg To Youth Services campaign against homophobic bullying in schools.
“It (politician) wants to separate them. And to do so it has chosen the worst, blackest pencil of all - the pencil of war, which spells only misery and death.”
“The sea? What's that?”
“It looks to me as though these politics mean Serbs, Croats and Muslims. But they are all people. They are all the same. They all look like people, there's no difference. They all have arms, legs and heads, they walk and talk, but now there's "something" that wants to make them different.”
“How you can come to love an animal! She doesn't talk, but she speaks with her eyes, her paws, her meows, and I understand her.”
“...choose to deal with inhumane situations in a humane way, we can turn the world around and create positive lessons for ourselves and for others.”
“My diary became more than a place to record daily events. It became a friend, the paper that it was made of was ready and willing to accept anything and everything I had to say.”