February 3rd 6:30pm
This month we'll discuss The Ministry of Pain, Dubravka Ugresic's edgy, extraordinary novel, offering universal insights into what it is like to lose home, nationality, and language. Published by HarperCollins, The Ministry of Pain was translated from the Croatian by Michael Henry Heim.
Having fled the violent breakup of Yugoslavia, Tanja Lucic is now a professor of literature at the University of Amsterdam, where she teaches a class filled with other young Yugoslav exiles, most of whom earn meager wages assembling leather and rubber S&M clothing at a sweatshop they call the "Ministry." Abandoning literature, Tanja encourages her students to indulge their "Yugonostalgia" in essays about their personal experiences during their homeland's cultural and physical disintegration. But Tanja's act of academic rebellion incites the rage of one renegade member of her class—and pulls her dangerously close to another—which, in turn, exacerbates the tensions of a life in exile that has now begun to spiral seriously out of control.
To receive updates about our monthly International Literature Book Club, please email yvonne@mcnallyjackson.com.
