The Impossible Country: A Journey Through the Last Days of Yugoslavia - Softcover

Hall, Brian

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140249230 ISBN 13: 9780140249231

Publisher: Penguin, 1995

Synopsis

“A tragic portrait . . . presented with sympathy and frequently with humor . . . [of] a disparate people who were never united except by their resentment of a foreign conqueror.” – Atlantic Monthly

In The Impossible Country, Brian Hall relates his encounters with Serbs, Croats, and Muslims— “real people, likeable people” who are now overcome with suspicion and anxiety about one another. Hall takes the standard explanations, the pundits’ predictions, and the evening news footage and inverts our perceptions of the country, its politics, its history, and its seemingly insoluble animosities.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

'Here is art which conceals art, and intellect which conceals intellect, so that by the end of the book one feels that one understands something one had not understood before. Mr Hall is witty and amusing, but not snide; he has a lightness of touch which allows him to write of extremely serious matters without solemnity; he knows how to convey a great deal in a few words' Sunday Telegraph

'He is an observant and witty writer...you believe implicitly that he has met the people he writes about, and that they said what he quotes them as saying' Sunday Times

'The Impossible Country...is much more than travel literature. Hall may be reporting on the context of the war rather than the events, but he is reporting nonetheless. His rich grasp of history and sense of argument take his writing beyond its genre' Literary Review

About the Author:

Brian Hall is the author of three novels, including I Should Be Extremely Happy in Your Company, his acclaimed story of the Lewis and Clark expedition, as well as three works of nonfiction.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0140249230
• ISBN 13: 9780140249231
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 352