Young Bosnian Author Longs for Normal Life : Glendale: About 150 people attend a book signing by 13-year-old Zlata Filipovic, whose diary from war-torn Sarajevo has made her an international celebrity.

Zlata Filipovic, the Bosnian teen-ager whose diary brought the everyday reality of the bloody Balkan war to life, said Monday she wishes to shed her sudden celebrity status to once again become a young girl.

“I’m very much looking forward to school, to being a kid again,” Zlata said at a book-signing appearance at the Super Crown bookstore in Glendale. She hopes to start the eighth grade in Paris after the Easter holidays.

About 150 people crowded around as Zlata, 13, read 10 passages from her 197-page memoirs, “Zlata’s Diary: A Child’s Life in Sarajevo.”

The daughter of a chemist and a lawyer, Zlata began keeping a diary two years ago when she was about to enter the fifth grade. The bestseller chronicles her journey from MTV and birthday parties to sniper fire and long days spent trapped in a cold cellar with little or nothing to eat.

Among the readings from the diary, each of which Zlata began with “Dear Mimmy,” a made-up friend, was one on June 29, 1992. “BOREDOM!!! SHOOTING!!! SHELLING!!! PEOPLE BEING KILLED!!! DESPAIR!!! HUNGER!!! MISERY!!! FEAR!!!” Zlata, who said the diary quickly became her best friend because she could not go outside to play with schoolmates, also read a passage from May 7, 1992, the day her best friend, Nina, was killed when a shell fell on the park where Nina was playing. “A piece of shrapnel lodged in her brain and she died. She was such a sweet, nice little girl. Is it possible I’ll never see Nina again?”

The book signing was the first stop on a brief West Coast promotional tour by the Bosnian girl, who is scheduled to read her diary and answer questions from Los Angeles Unified School District students today at the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles.

Erin Condit-Bergren, 12, who attended Monday’s reading, said the diary taught her how fortunate she was to be able to “curl up and read a book and watch television.”

“A lot of us come from sheltered lives in the suburbs. Zlata can show us what real life is like,” Erin said.

Zlata said she is sad her book hasn’t “stopped the war,” but hopes it has helped “all the people that read it and the newspaper articles and hear me talk to think about the war for at least five minutes. . . . Maybe they won’t forget.”

The diary was responsible for Zlata’s escape along with her parents, Malik and Alica, from war-torn Sarajevo to Paris in December.

After reading a 45-page excerpt of the diary published by UNICEF, the French minister of defense arranged for the family to be taken from Sarajevo to Paris by armored car under cover of darkness. UNICEF printed the excerpt in Sarajevo in Zlata’s native Croat on the suggestion of Zlata’s teacher.

After her escape, Zlata embarked on a whirlwind international tour to promote the book. This tour included a visit to America, where Viking won the rights to print the diary after bidding $540,000 at a January auction.

The publisher quickly printed 200,000 hardcover copies of the diary because of an urgent need to get Zlata’s message out, said Paul Slovak, director of publicity for Viking.

Zlata also toured Universal Studios on Monday, which paid a reported $1 million for the film rights to the diary and has drafted “Field of Dreams” director Phil Robinson to direct the drama.

As part of her American tour, Zlata met President Clinton last week, who assured her that politicians will quit fighting like “kids”--as she calls them in her diary--and will work to bring an end to the Balkan conflict.