A young would-be poet develops a complicated relationship with the most famous living Bosnian poet at the time. This relationship ends decades later on another continent when that poet dies, and the young man finds a life of his own that doesn't involve poetry.

In Bulgaria, two men who met online play submissive and dominant roles in an innitially-consensual sexual encounter that turns into a violent assault.

A petulant young boy in Yugoslavia goes on vacation with his parents and his uncle and aunt. While there, he only stops complaining when his uncle tells unsettling stories about his childhood.

A Bosnian journalist visits America during the Bosnian ethnic cleansing and moves into a dirty Chicago apartment with a woman he once met and her on-and-off boyfriend. He takes on a series of humiliating jobs and tries to avoid thinking about the unknown fate of his parents.

An old linguistics researcher is ousted from his university position on the frontier of a small island he acculturated. Upon his return home, he begins to believe that he and his life's work are marginal.

When a gay writer is hit over the head and knocked out by his Slovenian friend, he finds himself aimless in New York City, unable to do anything more than read about Eastern European history, retell the same story over again, and wait for his friend to return.

A young woman finds the letters that her aunt wrote to her while the aunt was in a concentration camp, helping her mother give birth and raise the young woman

A man recalls a friend whose marriage dissolved in 1914 Bosnia around the time the archduke of Austria was assassinated.

A U.S state department official encounters an infatuation on his trip to Eastern Europe that ends in despair.

When a librarian finds a moving book of poetry among a donation, she is introduced to fellow lovers of the author's work who strive to preserve the poet's desire for privacy while commemorating her work.