Ministry of Special Cases, The

Ministry of Special Cases, The

by NathanEnglander (Author)

Synopsis

Kaddish Poznan chips the names off gravestones for a living, removing traces of disreputable ancestors for their more respectable kin. His wife Lillian works in insurance, earning money when people live longer than they fear. Set in a tumultuous Buenos Aires on the cusp of a military coup, the couple's own tumultuous relationship is held together by their role as parents dedicated to a teenage son. As Argentina's Dirty War unfolds around them, it threatens to overwhelm the infectious, mad energy of their lives. Their sometimes hilarious misadventures are soon replaced by something much darker. A visit to the dreaded "Ministry of Special Cases" is only the start of Englander's stunning vision of a nation in the hold of corruption and torture, a place where absurdity, despair and hope are the end products of a bureaucracy run out of control.

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 339
Edition: Export edn.
Publisher: Faber
Published: 16 Aug 2007

ISBN 10: 0571235425
ISBN 13: 9780571235421
Book Overview: Now they've called me down to the Ministry of Special Cases. It makes no sense to start me there. I know they want us to be afraid. But why bother with me? I was afraid already.
Prizes: Shortlisted for John Sargent Snr First Novel Prize 2007.

Author Bio
Nathan Englander was born in New York in 1970. His short fiction has appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker, and numerous anthologies, including The Best American Short Stories and the O. Henry Prize Stories. Englander's story collection, For the Relief of Unbearable Urges, earned him a PEN/Malamud Award among many other accolades. He lives in New York City.