Death French-Albanian writer Ismail Kadare dies

Ismail Kadare was considered the most important chronicler of Albania's past and present. Now the French-Albanian writer has died at the age of 88.

The French-Albanian writer Ismail Kadare is dead. He died at the age of 88 in a hospital in Tirana, as confirmed by his French publisher. He was considered one of the most prominent contemporary Albanian-language authors.

Kadare published over 50 works, which have been translated into over 30 languages. In German-speaking countries, the small, modest and graceful writer became known for his books "Die Festung", "November einer Hauptstadt" and "Der Schandkasten", among others.

His novels deal with the myths, identity and history of a country and a people that he has chosen to chronicle. In his publications, he warns against foreign rule and describes the dangers of a "superstate" designed for self-preservation. His central theme: life under a dictatorship, which had earned him publication bans for years.

Kadare was born on the night of January 28, 1936 in Gjirokastra in southern Albania. Biographers disagree on the exact date of his birth, 27th or 28th. He studied in Tirana, then at the Gorky Institute in Moscow. His breakthrough came in 1964 with the novel "The General of the Dead Army", which was made into a film in France with Marcello Mastroianni and Michel Piccoli.

Kadare's political role in Albania was not always uncontroversial. His support for the communist system under the dictator Enver Hodja, who ruled the Socialist People's Republic of Albania from 1944 to 1985, was in the crossfire of criticism. The fact that he fled to France in 1990, when the regime of Hodja's successor Ramiz Alija promised freedom of travel and democratization, seemed illogical to many. He lived in Paris and Tirana, the capital of Albania.

SDA