Echoes of Violence

Preface xi Kosovo 1 (July 1999) 1 Lebanon (October 2000) 357 Nicaragua (April 2001) 71 Kosovo 2 (October 2000) 97 Romania (August 2001) 125 New York/Pakistan/Afghanistan (Sept. 2001-Feb. 2002) 155 Colombia (October 2002) 203 Northern Iraq/Iraq (April 2002 and March-April 2003) 245 Editorial Note 317 Acknowledgments 319

Carolin Emcke is a journalist, political theorist, and writer. She has a doctorate in philosophy and has been a visiting lecturer in political theory at Yale. As a staff writer for the foreign news desk of "Der Spiegel", she has written about war crimes and human rights violations around the world. In 2006 she was awarded the Ernst Bloch Forderpreis, a German award given to scholars and philosophers of extraordinary promise. She lives in Berlin.

"As a woman from a formal university background, Emcke was not prepared for situations that defy language, that cannot easily be shared with other people who have not been there...So, intelligently, she formed the habit of writing extended narrative letters to her circle at home which would at least communicate her own sensations...These letters, first written as a way of communicating and later, as she says, becoming a means to personal catharsis, form the basis for Echoes of Violence...A reader's memory will take away from her book a gallery of magnificent survivors, men and especially women who tell their tales without self-pity and who refuse to surrender to the miseries piled upon them."--Neal Ascherson, New York Review of Books "Through her personal letters to friends, Der Spiegel war correspondent Emcke offers a perspective on war beyond journalistic dispatches... Emcke describes the moral and political delicacy of reporting on a war from one side or the other and the overwhelming questions of humanity and inhumanity found in the midst of war."--Vanessa Bush, Booklist "This collection of ... letters combines gripping narrative with philosophic reflection on the meaning of war and the limitations of journalism to communicate the abyss of violence."--Kathy English, The Globe and Mail "Emcke ... recounts personal stories to illuminate the larger significance not only of each particular story/assignment/war but also of the nature of injustices... She handles battle with grace, both in the midst of conflict and, later, on the page... [H]er fine reportage shines through in it, particularly in moments on the northern front, which it's likely history will barely remember."--Eliza Griswold, Bookforum "A compelling blend of narrative and analysis, description and reflection... [Carolin Emcke's] passages about the limited but important role of journalists in war remind us of the need for someone to bear witness. Our role--difficult but not as difficult as hers--is to