The Ministry of Pain

SHORTLISTED FOR THE INDEPENDENT FOREIGN FICTION PRIZENo going back, no moving forward: in the aftermath of the Balkan wars of the 1990s, and in search of residency visas, Tanja Ludic and her pupils land in the Department of Slavonic Languages and Literature at the University of Amsterdam.There Tanja must teach the literature of ex-Yugoslavia to ex-Yugoslavs. Adrift in a safe Dutch limbo, they struggle not only to make ends meet but to make sense of their displacement.Tanja chooses to lead her students on a course in ‘Yugonostalgia’. and these shared, knowing rememberances of a vanished era temporarily infuse them with new vitality. But their fragile classroom bonds unravel when tragic events force them all to deal face-to-face with the consequences of the violent disintegration of their homeland.