Albanian novelist Ismail Kadare, the recipient of the inaugural Booker International Prize, has become Albania’s most celebrated and globally renowned literary export. The Man Booker International Prize seeks to recognise a living author who has contributed significantly to world literature and to highlight the author’s continuing creativity and development on a global scale.
Kadare’s reputation in his homeland was forged in the teeth of the harsh repression and dictatorship of Enver Hoxha’s communist regime.
David Bellos, who translated Kadare’s novel, Dosja H from French to English writes of the experience in “The Englishing of Ismail Kadare: Notes of a Retranslator.”
Saqi books first published Kadare’s work in English and tell a story of faithful belief on their website regarding the publication of Chronicle in Stone (1987); Doruntine (1988) and Broken April (1990).
Books available in English:
The General of the Dead Army
The Three Arched Bridge
Broken April
Chronicle in Stone
Durontine
The File on H
The Concert
The Palace of Dreams
Albanian Spring
The Pyramid
Elegy for Kosovo
Spring Flowers, Spring Frost
The Successor (forthcoming, January 2006)
Agamemnon’s Daughter (forthcoming, date TBC)
In the UK, he is published by Random House (Harvill/Vintage), and for the two forthcoming novels and relaunched backlist, Canongate.
In the US, he is published by Arcade.