No Place Like Home: Echoes from Kosovo

by Melanie Friend

British photographer and BBC radio reporter Melanie Friend has covered the Balkans since 1989. Her visits have been brief and always subject to film confiscation and surveillance. In 1999, as NATO bombs fell on Serbia, and ethnic Albanians fled Kosovo, Friend took portraits in the refugee camps of Macedonia. The 75 photographs and extraordinary interviews present one of the most profound, complex, and human documents of the recent history of the Balkans. As the centuries-old cycle of abuse enters a new phase, No Place Like Home explores life in the Balkans with fresh, unconventional insight.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

175 pages, Paperback

First published November 7, 2001

Reviews

[Kimmy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. What an awesome book and a refreshing way that the author has chosen to communicate the stories of these victims of war. Unlike a few of the books I just read about the conflicts in the Balkans, this book was much more than a dry regurgitation of history lessons. Through pictures and first hand accounts of real people, the author manages to convey the real emotion and the gripping pain of these survivors.

[Bob · Rating 5 out of 5]

Images and essays about the people of Kosovo and their homes. What I saw were regular people, just like I see every day in the American midwest, who are simply trying to live their lives as they see best. With very modest and clean homes. In a land that is quite beautiful.

Except for the conflict, that mercilessly killed thousands of people and brutally destroyed their lives and homes.

A horrible tragedy. It will take hundreds of years and a great many generations to put this into the past. If the conflict ever really stops.