Ismail Kadare, the Albanian novelist and poet who single-handedly wrote his isolated Balkan homeland onto the map of world literature, creating often dark, allegorical works that obliquely criticized the country’s totalitarian state, died in Tirana, Albania, on Monday.
In a literary career that spanned half a century, Mr. Kadare (pronounced kah-dah-RAY) wrote scores of books, including novels and collections of poems, short stories and essays.
He shot to international fame in 1970 when his first novel, “The General of the Dead Army,” was translated into French.
Mr. Kadare’s name was floated several times for the Nobel Prize, but the honor eluded him.
In 2005, he received the inaugural Man Booker International Prize (now the International Booker Prize), awarded to a living writer of any nationality for overall achievement in fiction.
Persons:
Ismail Kadare, Bujar Hudhri, Kadare, RAY, ”, Man Booker, International Booker, Gabriel García Márquez, Philip Roth
Organizations:
Onufri Publishing House, Dead Army, Man, International
Locations:
Albanian, Tirana, Albania