Product Description
From its unforgettable opening scene in the darkness of a forgotten cemetery in Buenos Aires, Nathan Englander's debut novel 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. 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, a terrifying, byzantine refuge of last resort. Through the devastation of a single family, Englander brilliantly captures the grief of a nation. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (38)

Excellent!
This book is definitely one of the best I've read this year.Amazing that he writes so well about the dark days in Argentina - and captures the essence of a part of Jewish life not so well known (the underworld).Characters are really well drawn - and the book has some very funny parts in spite of its grim subject.

Read This Book!!
No need to summarize as others have already done so.

This book touches on the most sensitive parts of family connections between parents, parents to children and children to their parents.

The book describes in an almost Kafka-esque like manner the horror of the "disappeared" in Argentina in the 1970's. The catch is that the description is in fact realistic. He uses humor in a back pallette that helps to alleviate the horror of the reality.

The "disappeared" are not forgotten in Argentina and should not be forgotten by us.

Bravo to such a young writer who has written a tour de force !!

Highly recommended

Shedding light on a dark era of Argentina
I had picked up Englander's The Ministry of Special Cases in an effort to learn more about this horrific time in Argentina's history which occured only decades ago.Having been born & educated in the US, this was a piece of history which never was disucssed in any of my history classes and when I had heard about the topic I was intrigued to learn what really happened during this awful period.

The style of writing is somewhat dark but alas the very real topic the author sinks into is somber at best.The characters are poignant and I found myself pulled into it very quickly, feeling the pain of the family in their endless search for the truth.Englander's novel is a must-read for anyone who wants to begin to scratch the surface of the history of this dark period of Argentina.

Tragedy and comedy and disaster.
This is a well written book, specific in its details as to the "desaparecidos" and the schisms in the Jewish society of Argentina.I had not been aware of the importation of vice by Jewish Pimps between 1880 and 1960.I am overcome with revulsion, and it helped me understand why the Jewish population of Buenos Aires separated itself from the vice.Why they did not accept the children, is another story, also one which disgusts me.
I grew up there, and never new it. My grandparents are burried and I am anxious to see if there indeed is a wall for our protagonist to climb over from one Jewish cemetery to the other.
The relentless pressure by the government to ignore, appease, threaten and destroy its own citizens is Kafkaeske in its convolutions, and gives is another reason to distrust powerful governments.God save us from juntas.

Liked the book. I hope you do to.
Leon

An Outsiders View of "The Dissappeared "in Argentina
February selection for a long running book discussion group on the upper west side in NYC. Several members had visited Buenas Aires and said the city was described well by the author. Nathan Englander, an American, wrote part of this book sitting in a cafe on Amsterdam Ave between 110th and 111th Street. Although profoundly depressing the group felt the book to be well written, the characters for the most part well drawn and the universal themes of loss and unrealized hope easy to identify with. Highly recommended. ... Read more

Product Description
One of the most stunning literary debuts of our time, theseenergized, irreverent, and deliciously inventive stories introduce anastonishing new talent.

In the collection's hilarious titlestory, a Hasidic man gets a special dispensation from his rabbi to seea prostitute. "The Wig" takes an aging wigmaker and makes her, for asingle moment, beautiful. In "The Tumblers," Englander envisions agroup of Polish Jews herded toward a train bound for the death campsand, in a deft, imaginative twist, turns them into acrobats tumblingout of harm's way.

For the Relief of Unbearable Urgesis a work of startling authority and imagination--a book that is aswondrous and joyful as it is wrenchingly sad. It hearalds the arrivalof a remarkable new storyteller.
Amazon.com Review
For the Relief of Unbearable Urges is an astonishment. WhetherNathan Englander is creating the last days of 27 condemned Soviet writersor the first in which a Park Avenue lawyer finds religion (in a taxi, noless), his gift is everywhere in evidence. Englander's specialty is thecollision of Jewish law and tradition with secular realities, whether inBrooklyn, Tel Aviv, or Stalinist Russia. In one tale, a wigmaker from anultra-orthodox Brooklyn enclave journeys into Manhattan for supplies and,more importantly, inspiration--frequenting a newsstand where she pays forthe right to flip through forbidden fashion magazines. If all Ruchama wantsto do is be beautiful again and momentarily free of communal constraints,others ask only to survive. In "The Tumblers," set in World War IIPoland (with a metafictional twist),followers of the Mahmir Rebbe get into a train filled with circusperformers rather than into a cattle car. Their only chance is tocamouflage themselves as part of the troupe:

Their acceptance as acrobats was a stretch, a first-glance guess, a benefitof the doubt granted by circumstance and only as valuable as their debutwould prove. It was an absurd undertaking. But then again, Mendel thought,no more unbelievable than the reality from which they'd escaped, no moreunfathomable than the magic of disappearing Jews.

Customer Reviews (95)

Excellent examination of human nature
Englander's delightful tales show a keen deep understanding of human nature and how people act in frequently unusual ways when they encounter the unusual and conflicts.
For example, in the short story For the Relief of Unbearable Urges, we enjoy reading about the curious unexpected advice that a Chassidic rabbi gave to his follower to have sex with a prostitute since his wife did not allow him in her bed. We read about what happened to this naïve man, his wife's reaction after the event, and the consequences that he endured by following his rabbi's seemingly sage advice. There is humor in all of this, but also a critique and a mockery of traditional Jewish practices, especially its laws concerning sex.
In The Twenty-seventh man, to cite another example of human reactions to strange situations, Stalin makes a list of twenty-six Jewish writers that he wants to be killed, but someone for some undisclosed reason adds a twenty-seventh man. The story can be read on many levels, but one is about fate, that uncontrollable, unforeseen, frequently unwanted event that takes over and controls the future of a person's life, as it does to the twenty-seventh man whose reactions are interesting. Among other things, he questions the existence of fate in controlling a person's destiny. He seeks meaning and purpose in life, even though there is none in this tale. He asks the twenty-six, "you don't believe there is any reason I was brought here to be with you? It isn't part of anything larger, some cosmic balance, a great joke of the heavens?"
In In the Way We Are, to give a final example of interesting reactions, an American becomes very fearful in Israel during bombings by terrorists, bombings that have become commonplace to Israelis. While he is almost paralyzed by fright, an Israeli woman is not. "`We cannot live in fear,' she says. `Of course you're terrified, it's terror after all.' She has nonsensical statistics as well. `Five times more likely to be run over. Ten times more likely to die in a car. But you still cross the street don't you.'"

Greatest Book Ever
I met the author he is so awesome. I loved this book it is probably the second most prolific book that I have ever read. I think this book has a universal message even if it's characters are of a specific background the excellence with his writing is shown in the universality that exists within the book.

Interesting, he's like the Dour Jewish David Searis ! ! !
In a good way... as in stern, grim.

... have to give this four stars because the Yiddish terms [without footnotes, although not in most cases impossible to decode] detract from the ability for the Goyim reader to absorb / enjoy these tales in the fashion which I think they really do deserve.

Having said that, the tales are eminently enjoyable and seem to improve in tone and skill as the work progresses, culminating in an "authors tale" of living in modern Israel and the difficulty an American like Natan encounters.

The Opening Story is STUNNING
The opening story was startling--I've never read anything like it.It wasn't the tone or the voice that startled--they were familiar in the way that Malamud sounds familiar, in the way that a distant relative you've seen only once before sounds familiar when he tells you a story about your father as a kid in New Jersey.But what happened in the story--the actual story, was so clever and sad and original, that it was hard to turn away.
There are many stories like this in the collection.The story about the wig . . . ah, well, I shouldn't say more.And then there are a couple of stories that couldn't hold me in the same way--I skimmed through them and moved on to the great ones.As a whole, a truly remarkable collection.

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Thank you!
And thank you Nathan Englander for your books. ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document, covering the life and work of Nathan Englander, is an entry from Contemporary Authors, a reference volume published by Thompson Gale. The length of the entry is 1084 words. The page length listed above is based on a typical 300-word page. Although the exact content of each entry from this volume can vary, typical entries include the following information:

• Place and date of birth and death (if deceased)
• Family members
• Education
• Professional associations and honors
• Employment
• Writings, including books and periodicals
• A description of the author's work
• References to further readings about the author

Product Description
Nathan Englander nacio en Nueva York en 1970. Con su primer libro de relatos Para el alivio de insoportables impulsos (Debolsillo 2002) recibio el aplauso unanime de la critica. El libro fue premiado con el PEN/Malamud y el Sue Kaufman de la American Academy of Arts and Letters a la primera obra. El New Yorker lo incluyo en su lista de los veinte escritores para el siglo junto a autores de la talla de David Foster Wallace o Jonathan Franzen. Fue profesor del Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers en la New York Public Library. Ministerio de Casos Especiales es su primera novela. ... Read more

Product Description
Reb Kringle (Nathan Englander); High Speeds (Chris Adrian); Lunch (Joseph Monninger); Always ask for Cash (Alan Lightman); And the Waters Prevailed (Keith Taylor); Snake (Bray Udall); His Moods (Bo Caldwell); Twinkle (Marion de Booy Wentzien); Roads (Daniel Stern); Everest (Emily Cerf); Disguises (Jean Fong Kwok); Death Watch (Joyce Carol Oates); ... Read more