Debut novelist James Mullaney creates an intensely realistic tale of life under a brutal regime in the vein of Khaled Hosseini's "The Kite Runner." Over the course of just a few days during the Iran-Iraq war, "The Ministry of Culture" chronicles the parallel lives of two men: One, an American journalist, is facing up to the seemingly relentless cycle of war in Iraq. The other, a young Iraqi painter, finds his talents hijacked by the government's propaganda machine as he is forced to paint the enormous murals of Saddam that ominously appear throughout Baghdad. "The Ministry of Culture" is a compelling, sometimes unsetting look at the history of Iraqi politics, the responsibility of Western governments for the direction that history has taken, and the universal question of how much a person can endure - and what is art's worth - in a culture of endlessly recurring violence.
- ISBN10 0312354460
- ISBN13 9780312354466
- Publish Date 1 May 2007
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 13 December 2008
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Thomas Dunne Books
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 320
- Language English