Criticism
A criticism often levelled at Åsne Seierstad is her tendency to present personal stories which have not been fully cross-checked for accuracy. Her style, blending historical facts with personal accounts, sometimes blurs the boundary between fact and fiction and language gaps can cause misunderstandings. By focusing on such a small group of individuals to present her case, she fails to prove any abuses or wrongdoing is systemic, and therefore cannot easily hold people to account for their actions.
In Angel of Grozny she goes a step further by writing some sections of the book in the third person. She describes events she did not witness, often in vivid and evocative language which is ill-suited to the actual person telling the story. The Manchester Guardian reviewer described the "blurring of reportage and imagined scenes" as "sometimes uncomfortable".
Read more about this topic: Angel Of Grozny: Inside Chechnya
Famous quotes containing the word criticism:
“A friend of mine spoke of books that are dedicated like this: “To my wife, by whose helpful criticism ...” and so on. He said the dedication should really read: “To my wife. If it had not been for her continual criticism and persistent nagging doubt as to my ability, this book would have appeared in Harper’s instead of The Hardware Age.””
—Brenda Ueland (1891–1985)
“...I wasn’t at all prepared for the avalanche of criticism that overwhelmed me. You would have thought I had murdered someone, and perhaps I had, but only to give her successor a chance to live. It was a very sad business indeed to be made to feel that my success depended solely, or at least in large part, on a head of hair.”
—Mary Pickford (1893–1979)
“I, with other Americans, have perhaps unduly resented the stream of criticism of American life ... more particularly have I resented the sneers at Main Street. For I have known that in the cottages that lay behind the street rested the strength of our national character.”
—Herbert Hoover (1874–1964)