Ex. About a Country Gone Missing

In 'Ex. About a Country Gone Missing', a book of history and literary reportage, Peter Vermeersch sketches portraits of everyday life in the former Yugoslavia. The story moves from a murder mystery in the streets of Brussels to a surprising variety of post-Yugoslav landscapes that impel visitors to remember certain parts of history and forget others. Vermeersch travels to Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia, Macedonia, Montenegro and Kosovo, and everywhere he listens to stories of common people about love, war, coffee, medication and tattoos. With an Orthodox priest he embarks on a pilgrimage to a monastery at the closed-off Greek peninsula of Athos and he also visits the Museum of Broken Relationships in Zagreb.

In a very poetic style and with a keen eye for the unexpected detail, Peter Vermeersch wrote a compelling literary narrative about the post-war experience in former Yugoslavia.