LIKE EATING A STONE

A searing portrait of the human devastation wrought by the Bosnian wars,and their aftermath - told through the stories of those who are left aliveand looking for their families and their remains - by a young writer whohas all the makings of a Kapuscinski or a Gourevitch. During four years ofwar in Bosnia, over 100,000 people lost their lives. But it was months,even years, before the mass graves started to yield up their dead and theprocess of identification, burial and mourning could begin. For many, thewaiting, the searching and the suspended grieving still continue. Here wetravel through the ravaged post-war landscape in the company of a few ofthose who survived, as they visit the scenes of their loss: a hall wherethe clothing of victims is displayed; an underground cave with its palejumble of bones; a camp for homeless refugees; a city now abandoned to theghosts of painful memories; a funeral service where a family finally saysgoodbye. These encounters are snapshots and memorials, capturing a jaggedmoment in a community's history as it is still flinching from its raw andrecent past, not quite yet able to believe in a possibility of a peacefulfuture.