The Fall of the Stone City
The Fall of the Stone City

Author: Ismail Kadare

Publisher: Canongate Books

Published: 2012-08-30

Total Pages: 139

ISBN-13: 0857863339

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Shortlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2013. In September 1943, Nazi troops advance on the ancient gates of Gjirokastër, Albania. The very next day, the Germans vanish without a trace. As the townsfolk wonder if they might have dreamt the events of the previous night, rumours circulate of a childhood friendship between a local dignitary and the invading Nazi Colonel, a reunion in the town square and a fateful dinner party that would transform twentieth-century Europe. A captivating novel of resistance in a dictatorship, and steeped in Albanian folklore, The Fall of the Stone City shows Kadare at the height of his powers.

The Traitor's Niche
The Traitor's Niche

Author: Ismail Kadare

Publisher: Catapult

Published: 2018-05-01

Total Pages: 168

ISBN-13: 1640090452

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

"Kadare is inevitably linked to Orwell and Kundera, but he is a far deeper ironist than the first, and a better storyteller than the second. He is a compellingly ironic storyteller because he so brilliantly summons details that explode with symbolic reality." —The New Yorker At the heart of the Ottoman Empire, in the main square of Constantinople, a niche is carved into ancient stone. Here, the sultan displays the severed heads of his adversaries. People flock to see the latest head and gossip about the state of the empire: the province of Albania is demanding independence again, and the niche awaits a new trophy . . . Tundj Hata, the imperial courier, is charged with transporting heads to the capital—a task he relishes and performs with fervor. As he travels through obscure and impoverished territories, he makes money from illicit side–shows, offering villagers the spectacle of death. The head of the rebellious Albanian governor would fetch a very high price indeed. The Traitor's Niche is a surreal tale of tyranny and rebellion, in a land where armies carry scarecrows, state officials ban entire languages, and the act of forgetting is more complicated than remembering. Long-listed for the 2017 Man Booker International Prize "The name of the Albanian novelist Ismail Kadare regularly comes up at Nobel Prize time, and he is still a good bet to win it one of these days . . . He is seemingly incapable of writing a book that fails to be interesting." —The New York Times

The Successor
The Successor

Author: Ismail Kadare

Publisher: Arcade Publishing

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 228

ISBN-13: 9781559707732

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

"This, Ismail Kadare's most recent novel, is a fictional inquiry into the still-unexplained death of Mehmet Shehu, the man who for decades was the designated Number Two political figure in Communist dictator Enver Hoxha's ironfisted and increasingly paranoid regime." "On the night of December 13, 1981, the so-called Successor was shot dead, sometime between midnight and early morning. Did he commit suicide or was he murdered? This is the burning question. There are a number of potential murderers: the architect in charge of renovating the Successor's new quarters, who knew of the secret underground passage to his home; a rising political figure, Adrian Hasobeu, who if the current successor were to disappear would surely be named Number Two; the dictator himself - known to his countrymen as the Guide - now ailing and almost blind, unable to countenance even the idea of being replaced; and, incredibly, the Successor's wife." "The Successor combines a tantalizing mystery with a historical novel (Who killed Mehmet Shehu?), a psychological examination (How do you live in a world where nothing is sure?), and an analysis of a dictatorship so repressive that its followers treat it as a religious faith, where love, and indeed all personal relations, are subject to the whims and demands of the state."--BOOK JACKET.

The File on H.
The File on H.

Author: Ismail Kadare

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2012-01-31

Total Pages: 135

ISBN-13: 161145994X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In the mid-1930s, two Irish Americans travel to the Albanian highlands with an early model of a marvelous invention, the tape recorder. Their mission? To discover how Homer could have composed works as brilliant and as long as The Iliad and The Odyssey without ever putting pen to paper. The answer, they believe, can be found only in Albania, the last remaining habitat of the oral epic. But immediately upon their arrival, the scholars’ seemingly arcane research excites suspicion and puts them at the center of ethnic strife in the Balkans. Mistaken for foreign spies, they are placed under surveillance and are dogged by gossip and intrigue. It isn’t until a fierce-eyed monk from the Serbian side of the mountains makes his appearance that the scholars glimpse the full political import of their search for the key to the Homeric question.

The Pyramid
The Pyramid

Author: Ismail Kadare

Publisher: Arcade Publishing

Published: 1996

Total Pages: 186

ISBN-13: 9781559703147

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In ancient Egypt, a pharaoh wants to dispense with a pyramid as his grave, but the priests convince him that building one is necessary to keep the populace busy and controlled. A political allegory by an Albanian writer, author of The Concert.

Doruntine
Doruntine

Author: Ismail Kadare

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 1998-06-05

Total Pages: 182

ISBN-13: 1561310328

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

...a magical parable of love, death and the power of familial bonds. -Stephen Salisbury, New York Times Book Review

The Accident
The Accident

Author: Ismail Kadare

Publisher: Canongate Books

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 1847673392

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A fever dream of a novel where love, jealousy and obsession collide

A Girl in Exile
A Girl in Exile

Author: Ismail Kadare

Publisher: Random House

Published: 2016-03-24

Total Pages: 151

ISBN-13: 1448191521

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

When a girl is found dead with a signed copy of Rudian Stefa’s latest book in her possession, the author finds himself summoned for an interview by the Party Committee. Unable to guess what transgression he has committed Rudian goes fearfully to meet his interrogators. He has never met the girl in question but he remembers signing the book. As the influence of a paranoid regime steals up on him, Rudian finds himself swept along on a surreal quest to discover what really happened to the mysterious girl to whom he wrote the dedication – to Linda B. ‘Powerful, empathetic, at times harrowing... executed with an elegant combination of horror, absurdity, indignation, and other-worldliness... A chilling, humane and strangely beautiful work’ Independent

The Accident
The Accident

Author: Ismail Kadare

Publisher: Canongate Books

Published: 2010-08-05

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 1847679153

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Why did the taxi crash on the autobahn in Vienna? Who exactly were Besfort Y and Rovena, the mysterious couple who died after being flung from the backseat? How was Besfort connected to the war in the Balkans? And why was his affair with Rovena clouded in jealousy and mistrust? Who wanted them dead? This is the story of the last forty weeks of their lives - a fever dream where love and obsession collide.

Chronicle in Stone
Chronicle in Stone

Author: Ismail Kadare

Publisher: Skyhorse

Published: 2011-07-01

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 1628721308

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Masterful in its simplicity, Chronicle in Stone is a touching coming-of-age story and a testament to the perseverance of the human spirit. Surrounded by the magic of beautiful women and literature, a boy must endure the deprivations of war as he suffers the hardships of growing up. His sleepy country has just thrown off centuries of tyranny, but new waves of domination inundate his city. Through the boy’s eyes, we see the terrors of World War II as he witnesses fascist invasions, allied bombings, partisan infighting, and the many faces of human cruelty—as well as the simple pleasures of life. Evacuating to the countryside, he expects to find an ideal world full of extraordinary things, but discovers instead an archaic backwater where a severed arm becomes a talisman and deflowered girls mysteriously vanish. Woven between the chapters of the boy’s story are tantalizing fragments of the city’s history. As the devastation mounts, the fragments lose coherence, and we perceive firsthand how the violence of war destroys more than just buildings and bridges.