Only the Nails Remain Scenes from the Balkan Wars

Chronicles 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. Merrill's journeys provide the narrative structure for an exploration of the roles and responsibility of intellectuals caught up in a decisive historical moment, many of whom either helped to incite the war or else bore eloquent witness to its carnage. He offers a literary meditation on war, a portrait of the poetry, politics and the people of the Balkans that will provide insight into the past, present, and future of those war-torn lands. --Adapted from publisher description.