The Impossible Country

“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

As war is breaking out in 1991, Brian Hall travels through Croatia, Serbia, and Kosovo to document the countries, their history, and their people. He 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.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.