Ismail Kadare
Ismail Kadare
Ismail Kadareis an Albanian novelist and poet. He has been a leading literary figure in Albania since the 1960s. He focused on short stories until the publication of his first novel, The General of the Dead Army. In 1996, he became a lifetime member of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences of France...
NationalityAlbanian
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth28 January 1936
CountryAlbania
freedom led
Literature led me to freedom, not the other way round.
according author bolshevik eminent familiar greater life mentality punished spent
Having spent the greater part of my life under a Communist dictatorship, I am very familiar with the Bolshevik mentality according to which an author in general, and an eminent author in particular, is always guilty, and must be punished accordingly.
balkans call exaggerate gave people somehow villages
Guidebooks used to write the name of my city in two ways: Gjirokaster in Albanian, and Argyrokastron for foreigners. The classical-sounding name somehow gave it better credentials, because people in the Balkans famously exaggerate and often call their villages cities.
adversary lived natural time tyrannical view
In general, literature is a natural adversary of totalitarianism. Tyrannical governments all view literature in the same way: as their enemy. I lived for a long time in a totalitarian state, and I know firsthand that horror.
great intrigued regions southern survivor three
In antiquity, there were three regions in southern Europe: Greece, Rome, and Ilyria. Albanian is the only survivor of the Ilyrian languages. That is why it has always intrigued the great linguists of the past.
life role time
I thought for a long time about leaving Albania, but at the same time to play a role in its life.
moving house empires
Can one move an empire as if it were a house?
home house guests
A mountaineer’s house, before being his home and the home of his family, is the home of God and of guests.
enemy literature natural
Dictatorship and authentic literature are incompatible... The writer is the natural enemy of dictatorship.
rain winter fog
Winter hurled more wind and rain at the city than it ever had before. Clouds dashed about in all directions emptying their thunder, hail and rain. The horizon was choked in fog.
musical mouths lilies
Shiny musical instruments wailed, their mouths open like lilies.
cutting unhappy lasts
His suspicion that he was not going in the right direction tortmented him more and more. At last he had the conviction that he would never go anywhere but in the wrong direction, to the very end of the handful of days that was left to him, unhappy moonstruck pilgrim, whose April was to be cut off short.
spring sky cities
In our city spring came from the sky, not from the soil, which was ruled by stone that recognizes no seasonal change. The change of the season could be glimpsed in the thinning of clouds, the appearance of the birds and the occasional rainbow.
writing winter long
I had three choices: to conform to my own beliefs, which meant death; complete silence, which meant another kind of death; to pay a tribute, a bribe. I chose the third solution by writing The Long Winter.