Kadare, Ismail << keh DAH ray, yihs MAH ihl >> (1936-2024), was an Albanian author known for his novels about his country’s history. In 2005, Kadare became the first winner of the Man Booker International Prize, a British literary award that recognizes a living author’s total body of work. The prize, now called the International Booker Prize, is awarded every two years. It is open to writers of all nationalities who have written in English or have had their works widely translated into English.
Kadare initially gained recognition in Albania for his poetry. However, he won international attention with his first novel, The General of the Dead Army (1963), a study of Albania 20 years after the end of World War II (1939-1945). The semiautobiographical novel Chronicle in Stone (1971) tells about a boy living in occupied Albania during and after World War II.
Kadare’s other novels include The Monster (1965), The Wedding (1968), The Great Winter (1977), The Three-Arched Bridge (1978), The Traitor’s Niche (1978), Broken April (1980), The Ghost Rider (1980, revised edition 1993), The Palace of Dreams (1981), The Concert (1988), The Pyramid (1992), Spring Flowers, Spring Frost (2000), The Successor (2003), The Fall of the Stone City (2008), A Girl in Exile: Requiem for Linda B. (2009), and The Doll (2015). Kadare also wrote short stories, essays, and literary criticism.
Kadare was born on Jan. 28, 1936, in Gjirokastër, Albania. He earned a teaching degree at the University of Tiranë in 1956 and then studied world literature at the Maxim Gorki Institute of Literature in Moscow until 1961. Kadare was an honored author in Albania until the 1980’s, when he aroused the opposition of the Communist government because of his call for political reforms. Kadare left Albania and settled in France in 1990, shortly before the fall of the Albanian Communist government. By the early 2000’s, Kadare was dividing his time between France and Albania. He died on July 1, 2024.
