The Ministry of Special Cases, By Nathan Englander
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Nathan Englander's sober, precisely-written novel has a flavour of Kafka about it, but it is no fantasy. It begins almost lightheartedly, focusing on the Argentinian Jewish stonemason Kaddish, and his strange employment of erasing from headstones the names of ancestors that respectable Jews are ashamed of. Then his son, Patos, goes missing, and Kaddish and his wife, Lillian, in opposed and equally hopeless ways, attempt to trace him.
Buenos Aires in 1976 was not a good place to disappear. A place where neighbours were afraid even to mention the disappearance; where you could queue up at the Ministry of Special Cases to find out more and be given a ticket with the number 456 on as nine is being called; where if you persisted in your enquiries the police might beat you to death with a telephone directory (it leaves no marks). It's hard to know which is worse – the casual brutality or the insolent bureaucracy with which the junta protected itself.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments