Janine di Giovanni: Evidence

Overview

For decades, acclaimed war correspondent Janine di Giovanni has chronicled the human cost of conflict, reporting from 18 wars and investigating three genocides.

Now, in her remarkable debut novel, she turns to fiction to tell a story that has haunted her for years. Join her for the launch of Evidence, her gripping novel about the aftermath of the Bosnian genocide, “a necessary and unforgettable book” (Salman Rushdie).

Telling the story of one of the thousands of women who survived the systematic sexual violence of the war in Bosnia, Evidence follows Hana, who has made a life for herself in Paris working in international law and humanitarian affairs. But beneath the surface lies a history she cannot outrun: her imprisonment in a notorious Bosnian camp, and the son she was forced to give up amid the violence. When she returns to Sarajevo to find him, she begins a search that will force her to reckon with what it means to remember, to forgive, and to love. Drawing on decades of reporting and intimate conversations with survivors, di Giovanni has written a novel that asks what happens long after the headlines about global atrocity fade. As Claire Messud writes, “Evidence has the propulsive force of a thriller. Janine di Giovanni illuminates the agonizing legacies of the war in Bosnia in this urgent, riveting, and ultimately uplifting novel.”

Hear di Giovanni discuss the fraught territory between journalism and fiction, the women whose testimonies shaped her work, and the ways love, loss, and history remain entangled long after a war is over.

“A marvelous soliloquy written against a century where we have seen the best and the worst of human nature. Janine di Giovanni is a visionary witness to our times.” — Colum McCann