On the Margin of the Sky by Dee Plecic

Dee Plecic’s autobiographical account of life in a war-torn city presents a world where racism and religious tyranny gradually replaced multiculturalism and tolerance is an amazing tale of one woman’s endurance.

In 1992, the city of Sarajevo, the capital of the Balkan country Bosnia and Herzegovina, fell under siege in the Bosnian War. The center of a multi-ethnic, multi-national power struggle among Serbs, Croatians, and Bosnians erupted, bringing the term “ethnic cleansing” into modern-day vocabulary. The author lived in Sarajevo during much of that time, and describes the daily conditions in harrowing detail: snipers firing on people getting water at the neighborhood well, routine bombings, and near starvation. She and her children were able to escape, and eventually take refuge in the US, where they have settled in Florida.

Plecic learned English as a second language in the US, and soon realized that she enjoyed writing and reportage. She provides newspaper reports and other documentation to support her personal story, interspersed with many haunting photographs from Sarajevo. Plecic recalls enduring the terrors of the siege by repeating positive auto-suggestions, and praying to the Creator in the heavens. She laments the current influence of extremist Islam in her once religiously integrated homeland, and encourages all peoples to pray, as she does, for global peace, providing an inspirational call to action.

The book is unfortunately written in non-native English, which is at times inscrutable, and needs urgent attention by a native editor to work the text over, along with the need for a redesign for the very basic cover. This is something the author should consider post haste, given this is an incredible story that pays testament to the bravery endured by those caught in this horrific conflict.