Albania’s world-renowned novelist Ismail Kadare dies at 88

Tributes paid to ‘monument of Albanian culture’

Ismail Kadare defied his country’s communist rulers (AFP via Getty)

Ismail Kadare, the acclaimed Albanian novelist and playwright who defied his country’s communist rulers through his writing, has died in a Tirana hospital after having a heart attack. He was 88.

Prime minister Edi Rama paid tribute to the writer as a “monument of Albanian culture”.

Kadare became internationally recognized after his novel The General of the Dead Army was published in 1963 under the regime of dictator Enver Hoxha.

He received numerous global awards, including the Man Booker International Prize in 2005, the Prince of Asturias Prize for the Arts in 2009, the Jerusalem Prize in 2015 and the America Award in Literature for a lifetime contribution to international writing in 2023.

Ismail Kadare in the Playfair Library in Edinburgh in 2005 (Reuters)

He also produced poems, essays and screenplays, and was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature 15 times, once saying that media reports tipping him as a potential winner meant “many people think that I’ve already won it”.

In 1975, after publishing a satirical poem called The Red Pasha, which took aim at Albania’s communist bureaucracy, Kadare was sent to do manual labour in a remote village in central Albania.

Three of his books fell foul of Albanian censors, and in 1990 he sought political asylum in France after receiving threats following his criticism of the government and calls for democracy. Last year, French President Emmanuel Macron named him as a Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor during a visit to Tirana.

“Albania and Albanians lost their genius of letters, their spiritual emancipator, the Balkans (lost) the poet of its myths, Europe and the world (lost) one of the most renowned representatives of modern literature,” Albanian president Bajram Begaj said in a statement.