General of the Dead Army - Softcover

Kadare, Ismail

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0099518260 ISBN 13: 9780099518266

Publisher: Vintage Classics, 2009

Synopsis

This sweeping epic of post-war Albania was Kadare’s first novel.

Twenty years after the end of the Second World War, an Italian general is dispatched to Albania to recover his country’s dead. Once there he meets a German general who is engaged upon an identical mission and their conversations bring out into the open the extent of their horror and guilt, newly exacerbated by their present task. As they descend from the callous trivialities of their gruesome business, past and present, to suffering self-disgust, the author gives us glimpses of the lives of the people whose graves they are unearthing.

About this title

Review:

The General of the Dead Army, Ismail Kadare's meditation on the consequences of war, is a hugely moving account of duty and loss. It is 20 years since the end of World War II and an Italian army general is sent to Albania to search again for the bodies of those who lost their lives in the campaign. He is armed with maps, lists, measurements, and dental and other records. He tours the countryside organizing digs and disinterments and, as he tries to find the dead sons of forgotten families, he wonders at the sense, and scale, of his task. He talks and argues with the curt Italian priest who is accompanying him. He finds his footsteps followed, sometimes anticipated, by a fellow general who is also looking for bodies--the bodies of his German countrymen. He struggles with the Albanian countryside, weather, laborers who work for him, and peasants who watch their work. And he fights the despair that grows as the size, scope, and, ultimately, the hopelessness of his task becomes ever more apparent.

Kadare's plaintive novel is a consistently heartfelt lament to all those who have died and been affected by war, but it is also a beautiful work displaying the skills that make him one of the great modern European writers. --Mark Thwaite, Amazon.co.uk

About the Author:

ISMAIL KADARE, born in 1936 in the mountain town of Gjirokaster, near the Greek border, is Albania's best-known poet and novelist. Since the appearance of The General of the Dead Army in 1965, Kadare has published scores of stories and novels that make up a panorama of Albanian history linked by a constant meditation on the nature and human consequences of dictatorship. "Dictatorship and authentic literature are incompatible," he wrote. "The writer is the natural enemy of dictatorship." His works brought him into frequent conflict with the authorities from 1945 to 1985. In 1990 he sought political asylum in France, and now divides his time between Paris and Tirana. He is the winner of the first ever Man Booker International Prize.

About this edition

• Publisher: Vintage Classics
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0099518260
• ISBN 13: 9780099518266
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272