Letters from Sarajevo

Cataldi, UNICEF's international media consultant in Sarajevo who also wrote the film treatment for Oscar Award-winner Out of Africa , collected these letters from Sarajevo residents to friends and family abroad. Despite the extensive media coverage of the horrors of the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, ``The truth about this tragic folly can only be told,'' Cataldi notes, ``by those who are involved in it and have no way out.'' With few exceptions, these letters are from anonymous writers who relate the details of their everyday lives in the besieged city: how many candles they burn, where they get water, how they keep warm, what they scavenge for dinner, who was killed. Although the letters were not intended for public consumption and most are filled with personal references, the homely information about these lives of ordinary people in the midst of terror and destruction have a powerful cumulative impact that Cataldi hopes will evoke a greater humanitarian response to residents' plight. She also recounts her own experiences in Sarajevo and provides a chronology of events. (July)