For years a candidate for the Nobel Prize for Literature, the most important writer of Albanian literature, Ismail Kadare, was born in Gjirokastër, in the south of Albania, in a family of clerks. He studied the Albanian language and literature at the State Institute of Tirana and at the "Maxim Gorki" Institute in Moscow, Koha Ditore writes today.
When he was eighteen years old, he published his first collection of poems, "Boyish Inspirations", and then devoted himself to prose, novels and short stories. He has published the novels "The General of the Dead Army", "The Castle", "The Palace of Dreams", "Chronicle in Stone", "The Great Winter", "November of a Capital", "Wedding", "Twilight of the Steppe Gods" ", "Concert at the end of winter" and others. He is also known as a storyteller, poet, essayist, literary theorist and critic.
He is a member of several academies. He is the winner of international awards, including the "Man Booker International Prize" and the "Commander of the Legion of Honor" of France. Since December 2018, he is an honorary member of the Academy of Sciences and Arts of Montenegro (CANU). His first novel, "The General of the Dead Army", has made the Albanian writer the most read, and soon known in Europe as well. "The General of the Dead Army" has been translated into about thirty languages and has stimulated interest in Kadare's other works as well.
(You can read the full article in today's issue of Koha Ditore)