The writer passed away in Tirana ismail Kadare, author of a monumental work under the communist tyranny of Enver Hoxha and considered the greatest Albanian author of the twentieth century and the beginning of the third millennium, capable of elaborating in his works the History and myths of his country in narratives of universal scope. Sources from the hospital in Tirana, confirmed by his publisher, announced that Kadare died of a heart attack. He was 88 years old.
Writer, poet, essayist and screenwriter, during the communist regime He was a member of the People’s Assembly for 12 years (from 1970 to 1982) and vice-president of the Democratic Front of Albania. He started out writing poetry, but it was the publication of his first novel, The general of the dead armywhich made him the dominant literary figure in Albania and gave him international fame. The novel, in which he told the story of the enterprise of an Italian general and a priest who want to search for and bring back home the bodies of the Italian fallen in Albania during the Second World War.
Kadare used every opportunity to attack the regime in his works, by means of political allegories. So much so that several of his novels, such as Concert at the end of winter, The Monster e The Palace of Dreamshave been banned by the Albanian state.
Kadare was born in Gjirokastra and graduated in history and philology at the University of Tirana. He studied literature for two years at the Gorky Institute in Moscow, but was forced to abandon his studies in Russia due to the complicated diplomatic relationship between Albania and the Soviet Union. Returning to his homeland, he began his career as a journalist in a magazine known in the country as light (“Light”); in a short time he became known and moved on to direct the magazine Albanian letters.
In 1990, after publicly expressing his dissent towards the Albanian communist leadership, he asked for political asylum in France. With the fall of the regime, he returned to his homeland in 1992, dividing his time between Albania and France. In 2005 he was awarded the International Booker Prize, in 2018 the Nonino Prize, while in 2009 he won the Prince of Asturias Award. He has been among the favorites for the Nobel Prize in Literature several times, without ever securing the prize. La nave di Teseo, where his work is currently being republished, has published Doll (2017) e The provocation (2018), Broken April (2019), The Stone City e Mornings at Café Rostand (2021).
