The Minister

Description

There is nothing easy about being the Minister of Culture of Montenegro, but the next nine days for Valentin Kovačević will be especially difficult. Participating in an artist’s performance, he has accidentally killed her, and now, if Kovačević is to maintain both his position and his sanity, he must successfully navigate the murky corridors of government bureaucracy, cultural
customs, and family pressures.

The Minister, winner of the 2020 European Union Prize for Literature, is a mind-bending political noir that reveals the ugly truths about how the promises of democratic change empower corrupt politicians and organized crime syndicates, fan the flames of nationalism, and eradicate the middle class.

About the Author

Stefan Bošković was born in 1983 in Podgorica, Montenegro. His works include the short story collection Transparentne životinje (Transparent Animals, 2018) and the novel Šamaranje (Slap in the Face, 2014), which won the 2014 award for the best manuscript novel in Montenegro. In 2016, he received second prize at the Festival of European Short Stories for “Fashion and Friends.” Bošković has also written scripts for a feature film, several short films, a sitcom series, and numerous documentaries. The Minister won the 2020 European Union Prize for Literature.

About the Translator

Will Firth was born in 1965 in Newcastle, Australia, and studied German and Slavic languages in Canberra, Zagreb, and Moscow. He has lived in Berlin, Germany, since 1991, working as a translator of literature and the humanities from Russian, Macedonian, and all variants of Serbo-Croatian. His major recent translations include Andrej Nikolaidis’s Till Kingdom Come and Anomaly, Faruk Šehić’s Quiet Flows the Una, Miroslav Krleža’s Journey to Russia, Miloš Crnjanski’s A Novel of London, and Tatjana Gromača’s Divine Child.