TEHRAN – “The Diary of a Political Idiot: Normal Life in Belgrade” by Jasmina Tesanovic has been published in Persian.

Mahi is the publisher of the book originally published in 2000. Razieh Khoshnud is the translator of the Persian edition.

Hours after NATO started bombing Yugoslavia, Jasmina Tesanovic received an e-mail from a friend in Sweden who wanted to know how she was doing. 

Jasmina didn’t have time to write back, so she sent entries from her diary. Her friend, the writer Ana Valdes, posted Jasmina’s diary entries on the website of a magazine she wrote for. 

Within a week, the diaries had been posted anonymously on fifty websites and sent in e-mails throughout the world. The diary of an anonymous woman from Belgrade had become everybody’s diary.

“The Diary of a Political Idiot” was first published as a book in Argentina and has since been translated into eleven languages. 

At a time when “compassion fatigue” is seen as both the cause and the unavoidable consequence of current international news reporting, Jasmina Tesanovic’s wide readership is as much a testimony to the intelligence and compassion of her readers as it is to her own.

Labeled a traitor by nationalist Serbians because she opposes the war in Kosovo, a dissident journalist chronicles the intimate details that haunt her daily life. 

Amidst the bombardment, however, hope persists: neighbors braving air attacks to commune at midnight Easter service; young women performing ballet recitals despite all threats of danger; strangers gathered for safety, waiting for the next NATO bomb to strike. 

The author takes us beyond the sound bites of the nightly news by offering a firsthand account of daily life in a war zone. 

“The Diary of a Political Idiot” was named a PEN selection for 2000 and has been simultaneously published in 11 languages.

Photo: Front cover of the Persian edition of Jasmina Tesanovic’s book “The Diary of a Political Idiot: Normal Life in Belgrade”.

MMS/YAW