Nathan Englander's long awaited debut novel, The Ministry of Special Cases, set at the height of Argentina's Dirty War, is a haunting journey into a world of terror, into a forbidden city within a city at a time of radical instability and dislocation. Englander moves effortlessly between the cosmic and the minute, wrestling with extraordinary themes and binding them into an exceptionally crafted narrative that fuses absurdity and desolation with transcendence and abiding love. The fate of the Jews; the fate of the disappeared; the fate of one family—of a hopelessly lost father and a hopelessly lost son—all meet in the dark, inescapably tortuous corridors of this unforgettable novel.
For the Relief of Unbearable Urges, his debut collection of short stories published in 1999, was an immediate literary sensation. In "The Twenty-seventh Man" a Kafka-esque clerical error lands an unknown author in prison with twenty-six famous writers, awaiting Stalin's order for their execution. "The Tumblers," is the fable-like story of a group of Polish Jews who evade certain death at Aushwitz by getting on the wrong train, one filled with circus performers, and transforming themselves into acrobats to save their lives. For the Relief of Unbearable Urges marked Englander as a remarkably gifted writer; The Ministry of Special Cases, confirms his place as one of the most significant writers of his generation.
Admission is free. However registration is required. To register: email smillard@writersfest.bc.ca; call VIWF at 604.681.6330 or JCC reception at 604.257.5111.

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