Ismail Kadare

Ismail Kadare, the most prominent contemporary Albanian author, was born in Gjirokastër in 1936. He studied philology at the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Tirana and at the Gorky Institute of World Literature in Moscow. He has written poetry, essays, but primarily novels. He was the first Albanian writer to gain wide international recognition (translated into more than fifteen languages) as a prose writer worthy of the greatest literary awards. In recent years, he has been a candidate for the Nobel Prize. Reading Kadare's works leaves an impression similar to reading a great established "classic." His major novels include: "The Three-Arched Bridge," "The Twilight of the Gods of the Steppe," "Chronicle in Stone," "The Drums of Rain," "The Concert," "The Monster," "The Pyramid," "The General of the Dead Army," "Who Brought Doruntine," "Spiritus," "Moonlight," "The Eagle," "The Church of Saint Sophia and Other Stories," "File O," "Three Elegies for Kosovo." His essays include: "Aeschylus: The Great Loser," "Invitation to the Writer's Workshop." In 2005, he was honored with the Man Booker International Prize for his body of work, and in 2009, he received the Spanish-speaking Nobel, the Premio Principe de Asturias de las Letras. In the same year, he also received the Balkanika Prize for his novel translated into French as "L’ Entravee: requiem pour Linda B." ("The Blocked: Requiem for Linda B.").