Episode With Richie Sadlier: Zlata Filipovic
In March 1992, Zlata Filipovic was an 11-year-old girl growing up in Sarajevo, Bosnia in a normal, middle-class family who kept a diary about all the everyday things a child of her age does: going to school, doing music lessons, visiting her grandparents.
Just one month later, Zlata’s diary had begun to transform into an incredibly vivid description of a city under siege as the Balkans War reached her hometown. Towards the end of 1993, that diary became she and her family’s way out of the city: picked up by a French publisher, it became an international bestseller in the midst of the war and Zlata, just 13 years old, became a media phenomenon.
She joined Richie in the Second Captains studios earlier this week and described the daily reality of life in a war-torn city, how overwhelming at times the coverage of the ongoing atrocities in Ukraine and Gaza have been, and how she and her family eventually came to resettle in Dublin in the nineties. Zlata’s story is truly incredible and feels particularly timely – we’d like to thank her for being so open and willing to share it.
Episode is brought to you by NOW and is a Second Captains production.
Click the player at the top of the page to play the show. To support the development of series like Episode and longer-form work like our recent international series, ‘Where Is George Gibney?, you can join the Second Captains World Service. It’s independent, commercial-free and member-led with feature interviews, breaking news, Ken’s Football Show, The Politics Podcast, The “I’ll Tell You Who Wrote It” Book Club and lots of added extras.
A final shoutout:
Even if you never heard a second of Marian Finucane broadcasting, her husband John's thoughts on losing the people you love the most and the necessity to keep forging a life for yourself afterwards is so beautiful
If you have 45 mins this weekend, do listen? https://t.co/V3EUDwSlsf
— Killian Down (@KillianDown) November 18, 2023