Ismail Kadare

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Ismail Kadare
Born	January 28, 1936(1936-01-28) Gjirokaster, Albania
Occupation	Novelist, Poet
Nationality	Albanian
Writing period	1954 – present
Literary movement	Postmodern literature
Notable work(s)	The General of the Dead Army 1963 The Castle 1970 Chronicle in Stone 1971) Broken April 1978 [1][1][2] The Three-Arched Bridge 1978 The Palace of Dreams 1981 The Concert 1988 The File on H 1990 The Pyramid 1992[3]
Notable award(s)	Man Booker International Prize 2005 Prince of Asturias Awards 2009
Influences Franz Kafka, Thomas Mann, Albert Camus, Italo Calvino, Vladimir Nabokov

Ismail Kadare (born January 28, 1936) is an Albanian writer/novelist. In 1996 he became a lifetime member of the French Académie des Sciences morales et Politique, where he replaced the famous philosopher Karl Popper. In 1992, he was awarded the Prix mondial Cino Del Duca; in 2005, he won the inaugural Man Booker International Prize and in 2009 the Prince of Asturias Award of Arts. He has divided his time between Albania and France since 1990. He is a Nobel Prize in Literature candidate.

Contents 1 Biography 2 Selected works 3 Dissidence 4 Recognition 5 See also 6 References 7 External links

[edit] Biography

Ismail Kadare was born in Gjirokastër, Albania in 1936. He first studied at the Faculty of History and Philology at the University of Tirana and later at the Maxim Gorky Literature Institute in Moscow. During the terror of the communist regime, Kadaré attacked totalitarianism and the doctrines of socialist realism with subtle allegories, such as "The Palace of Dreams", a political allegory of totalitarianism, set in the Ottoman Empire capital. Published in 1980, the book was almost immediately banned . Kadare's novels draw on Balkan history and legends. They're also pervasively yet obliquely ironic as a result of the need to withstand political scrutiny. Among his most well known books are "Chronicle in stone" (1977), "Broken April" (1978)^[1][1][4] , or "The Concert" (1988), considered the best novel of the year 1991 by the French literary magazine Lire. ^[5].

In 1990, Kadare claimed political asylum in France, issuing statements in favour of democratisation. During the ordeal, he stated that "dictatorship and authentic literature are incompatible... The writer is the natural enemy of dictatorship." When asked, though, he's never claimed to be a Solzhenitsyn, arguing that such a role wasn't readily available under Hoxha's uniquely paranoid and insular regime.

[edit] Selected works

The following Kadaré titles have been translated into English:

• Gjenerali i ushtrisë së vdekur (The General of the Dead Army, 1963)
• Dasma (The Wedding, 1968)
• Kështjella (The Castle or The Siege, 1970)
• Kronik‘ n‘ gur, Tirana (Chronicle in Stone, 1971)
• Dimri i madh (The Great Winter, 1977)
• Prilli i thyer (Broken April, 1978)^[1][1][6]

• Ura me tri harqe (The Three-Arched Bridge, 1978)
• On the Lay of the Knights (1979)
• Kush e solli Doruntinën (Doruntine, 1980)
• Autobiografia e popullit në vargje (The Autobiography of the People in Verse, 1980)
• Nënpunësi i pallatit të ëndrrave (The Palace of Dreams, 1981)
• Koncert në fund të dimrit (The Concert, 1988)
• Dosja H: roman (The File on H, 1990)
• Nga një dhjetor në tjetrin (Albanian Spring, 1991)
• La Pyramide (The Pyramid, 1992)^[7]
• Tri këngë zie për Kosovën (Three Elegies for Kosovo, 1998)
• Lulet e ftohta të marsit (Spring Flowers, Spring Frost, 2000)
• Pasardhsi: roman (The Successor, 2003)
• Vajza e Agamemnonit (Agamemnon's Daughter, 2003)

[edit] Dissidence

Opinions differ on whether Kadare was a dissident or a conformist during the communist period. It is a fact that books such as The Palace of Dreams, are a clear denunciation of the tyranny and absurdity of the communist regime. In a political and literary environment completely and fiercely controlled by the state, Kadare's writing was for many the only window to anything approaching reality, let alone resistance.

On this subject Kadare himself has been quoted as saying that he never claimed to be a dissident, that "dissidence was a position no one could occupy, even for a few days, without facing the firing squad. On the other hand, my books themselves constitute a very obvious form of resistance. In an interview with Blendi Fevziu in Opinion, he added that this polemic was absurd, since he was a writer and a private person free to have his opinions, not someone elected from the people. Therefore he was not accountable to anybody and did not feel like explaining or justifying whether he was a dissident or not. "^[8]

[edit] Recognition

Kadare's works have been published in over forty countries and translated in over thirty languages.. In English, his works have usually appeared as secondary translations from the French. He has been a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature and in 2005 he received the inaugural Man Booker International Prize. On June 2009, Kadare was awarded the Prince of Asturias Award for Liturature. ^[9] "He has been compared to Gogol, Kafka and Orwell. But Kadare's is an original voice, universal yet deeply rooted in his own soil".^[10]

[edit] See also

• Albanian literature
• Albanian culture

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Biography, from 'Books and Writers', by Petri Liukkonen