THE MINISTRY OF SPECIAL CASES

Book ID/图书代码： 12844007B11530

English Summary/英文概要： From its unforgettable opening scene in the darkness of a forgotten cemetery in Buenos Aires, The Ministry of Special Cases casts a powerful spell. In the heart of Argentina’s Dirty War, Kaddish Poznan struggles with a son who won’t accept him; strives for a wife who forever saves him; and spends his nights protecting the good name of a community that denies his existence--and denies a checkered history that only Kaddish holds dear. When the nightmare of the disappeared children brings the Poznan family to its knees, they are thrust into the unyielding corridors of the Ministry of Special Cases, the refuge of last resort.

Chinese Summary/中文概要： 故事座落在布宜諾斯艾利斯(阿根廷首都)有一個不幸的男人Kaddish Poznan，他一生背負著矛盾情結，痛苦不已，他一方面在墓園消除死人的記錄，更改墓誌；另一方面，他的兒子，也正遭受公權力極力抹除他的生存記錄。
Kaddish Poznan是猶太人，母親是妓女，長大後，他在墓園工作，賺取微薄薪水。一些有頭有臉的猶太後代在阿根廷生活，因恥於父母曾經是妓女或皮條客，所以委託Poznan將他們父母名字從墓碑中消除，試圖告訴世人，不存在的證明，Poznan就是專門消除別人的生存事實。
Poznan的兒子Pato是左派激進大學生，當時70年代的阿根廷(備註)，正處於軍政府反制人民的時代，他的兒子因此被軍政府追捕，再也沒有回家，而軍政府更想盡辦法，抹除Pato所有生存的紀錄，讓這個人，從來不曾出現在世界上…，如果不曾出現，那掘墓工Poznan的存在價值又是什麼？(CL)

Awards/获奖情况：版權已售:
German - Wilhelm Goldmann Verlag GmbH
Dutch - Ambo Anthos Uitgevers
Spanish/World - Random House Mondadori S.A.
Italian - Arnoldo Mondadori Editore SpA
Hebrew - Keter Publishing House
French World - Librairie Plon SA
Danish - Borgens Forlag A/S
Portuguese/Brazil only - Editora Rocco Ltda.
Romanian - Editura Paralela 45
Finnish - Like Publishing Ltd
Hungarian - Ulpius-haz Konyvkiado BT

Reviews
’Gogol, I.B.Singer and Orwell all come to mind, but Englander’s book is unique in its layering of Jewish tradition and totalitarian obliteration.’---Publishers Weekly
’This resonates of Singer, yes, but also of Bernard Malamud and Lewis Carroll, plus the Kafka who wrote The Trial, and, if I’m not mistaken, quite a bit of Jiri Weil... there must also be a Gogol somewhere. And all these writers seem to have gone to some slapstick movie, A Night At The Opera maybe, with the Marx brothers and Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor.’---Harper’s Magazine

About the Author/作者介绍： 作者Nathan Englander 1970年出生，猶太裔美國人，他的第一本書，短篇小說集For the Relief of Unbearable Urges得到筆會/馬拉默德短篇小說獎(PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story)(備註)，當中的短篇也曾刊載於知名的刊物，例如《美國最佳短篇小說選》( The Best American Short Stories)，《The Gilgul of Park Avenue》。
備註：
1)骯髒戰爭(Dirty War，1976-1983)阿根廷軍政府獨裁統治下，無數人在當局所謂「國家安全」的旗幟下，被綁架、嚴刑迫供和秘密處決。
2)PEN/Malamud Award由PEN/Faulkner Foundation (福克納基金會)董事每年選出最優秀的短篇小說。
The long-awaited novel from Nathan Englander, author of For the Relief of Unbearable Urges. Englander’s wondrous and much-heralded collection of stories won the 2000 Pen/Malamud Award and was translated into more than a dozen languages.
Nathan Englander’s first novel is a timeless story of fathers and sons. In a world turned upside down, where the past and the future, the nature of truth itself, all take shape according to a corrupt government’s whims, one man--one spectacularly hopeless man--fights to overcome his history and his name, and, if for only once in his life, to put things right. Here again are all the marvelous qualities for which Englander’s first book was immediately beloved: his exuberant wit and invention, his cosmic sense of the absurd, his genius for balancing joyfulness and despair. Through the devastation of a single family, Englander captures, indelibly, the grief of a nation. The Ministry of Special Cases, like Englander’s stories before it, is a celebration of our humanity, in all its weakness, and--despite that--hope.

Format:TRADE PAPERBACK

Rights Status/版权销售情况：Simplified Chinese/简体中文：AVAILABLE

Complex/Traditional Chinese/繁体中文：AVAILABLE(到期可授)

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