The Ministry of Pain

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.

Author: Dubravka Ugresic
Publisher: Ecco Press
Published: 02/27/2007
Pages: 272
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.51lbs
Size: 7.98h x 5.36w x 0.65d
ISBN: 9780060825850

Review Citation(s):
New York Times 03/25/2007 pg. 24

About the Author
Ugresic, Dubravka: -

An acclaimed novelist and essayist, Dubravka Ugresic is a native of the former Yugoslavia who left her homeland in 1993 for political reasons. She now lives in Amsterdam.