Only the Nails Remain

the long version

"Only the Nails Remain: Scenes from the Balkan Wars is a chronicle of poet and critic Christopher Merrill's ten war-time journeys to the Balkans from the years 1992 through 1996. At once a travelogue, a book of war reportage, and a biography of the imagination under siege, this personal narrative takes the reader along on the author's journeys to all the provinces and republics of the former Yugoslavia - Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Slovenia, and Vojvodina - as well as to Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, Greece, Hungary, Italy, and Turkey. Here is a literary meditation on war, a portrait of the poetry, the politics, and the people of the Balkans that will provide insight into the past, present, and future of those war-torn lands"--BOOK JACKET.