The Ministry of Pain and the Theology of Hell

• In Event: Yugoslav Responsibility II: Taking a Stand: Culture, Commitment, and Critique

Abstract

The Ministry of Pain, Dubravka Ugrešić’s celebrated 2005 novel, ends with the narrator-protagonist standing at the edge of an abyss, reciting her famous “Balkan litany.” Having already been dispossessed of things once socially owned—her country, her language, her future—the narrator now appears also to be losing properties inalienable by definition: what she identifies as her voice and her trace. It is at this exact moment, when the narrative, historical, and philosophical subject undergoes near-complete annihilation, that Ugresic offers a rare glimpse of hope, a redemptive element that has received little critical attention.

Author

• Djordje Popovic, UC Berkeley