They Would Never Hurt a Fly

This slim, lucidly written book is a devastating read. While western feminists wrangle over an allegation of sexual harassment by an eminent literary critic nearly 20 years ago, Drakulić provides us with pen portraits of murder and rape on a mass scale that occurred less than a decade ago in the heart of Europe. But the central question of this book is an important one, of long and distinguished lineage: how do apparently ordinary citizens turn into callous, death-peddling brutes? Acclaimed novelist and journalist Slavenka Drakulić reports from the War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague, to try to learn from and understand these events.