In March 1992, Zlata Filipović 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.

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