To celebrate the rich legacy of Reader’s Digest, we share some of your most cherished memories of the magazine. Kicking off this new series is a moving letter from our reader in Bosnia and Herzegovina, who found solace in learning English with the help of Reader's Digest as a child in a war-torn country...
Azur Hrusti, Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina
A Letter From A Boy, From 1993
I was nine when the war started in Bosnia. Just a couple of months before that, my brother passed away from cancer. My mother gave her all not to feed my introvert nature, would even lock the door of the house and made me go out and find other kids to play with.
When the shelling of our country began, going outside was life threatening. With nowhere to play, my mother took me to an English language class. At first there were about 20 of us. After a couple of months of shelling, I was the only one to attend the class. The old English teacher gave every atom of her energy to pass on all the knowledge she could to make me learn and use the time with her as effectively as possible. I will never forget her words: "When you find yourself waking up and thinking in the other language, only then you will know you're on a good path to learning it”.
The classes finished, it was still wartime, and I was hungrier for the English language—more than ever. My family's next door neighbour used to work as an English interpreter, and he started giving me two kinds of materials: Agatha Christie's novels and Reader's Digest! But there was a cat
