Fiction
MINISTER
by STEFAN BOŠKOVIĆ
The novel Minister follows the life of Valentin Kovacevic, Minister for Culture of Montenegro, during nine turbulent days in which he struggles with the difficulties of business pressures, cultural customs, administration, the inevitable bottom line of family history … and with himself. Bošković writes in a fast and filmic way which is, however, consciously literary, with elements of political thriller, noir, psychedelia and the melancholy of human beings and society in transition growing organically and unpredictably from each other, so that every now and then the reader will ask who is crazy here: the minister, society or the reader themself. There are no easy answers to such difficult questions, and as mesmerising as this book may be, its effect is dissecting and sobering: both human beings and society reveal themselves in all their misery and opulence, in disharmony and striving to attain the coveted normalcy and peace.
