An early masterpiece from the inaugural winner of the International Man Booker Prize.
ISMAIL KADARE was born in 1936 in Gjirokaster, in the south of Albania. He studied in Tirana and Moscow, returning to Albania in 1960 after the country broke ties with the Soviet Union. Translations of his novels have since been published in more than forty countries, and in 2005 he became the first winner of the Man Booker International Prize. DAVID BELLOS, Director of the Program in Translation at Princeton University, is also the translator of Georges Perec's Life A User's Manual and a winner of the Goncourt Prize for biography. He has translated seven of Ismail Kadare's novels, and in 2005 was awarded the Man Booker International Prize for his translations of Kadare's work.
* Chronicle in Stone is stunning, the quintessential tale of war seen through a child's eyes. -- Susan Salter Reynolds Los Angeles Times * Sophisticated and accomplished in its poetic prose and narrative deftness. -- John Updike New Yorker * A master storyteller -- John Carey * Writing like this is hard to stop quoting...It is musical not only in rhythms that survive in this deft...translation but in its most elemental perceptions. -Evan Eisenberg, The Nation * [Albania's] most remarkable export: the novels of Ismail Kadare. Ken Kalfus, The Village Voice Literary Supplement * Chronicle in Stone is epic in its simplicity; the history of a young Albanian and a primitive Albania awakening into the modern world. Michael Dregni, Minneapolis Star Tribune
* Chronicle in Stone is stunning, the quintessential tale of war seen through a child's eyes. -- Susan Salter Reynolds Los Angeles Times * Sophisticated and accomplished in its poetic prose and narrative deftness. -- John Updike New Yorker * A master storyteller -- John Carey * Writing like this is hard to stop quoting...It is musical not only in rhythms that survive in this deft...translation but in its most elemental perceptions. -Evan Eisenberg, The Nation * [Albania's] most remarkable export: the novels of Ismail Kadare. Ken Kalfus, The Village Voice Literary Supplement * Chronicle in Stone is epic in its simplicity; the history of a young Albanian and a primitive Albania awakening into the modern world. Michael Dregni, Minneapolis Star Tribune
"They're like people, stones are," muses the young narrator of this 1971 novel, first published in the United States in 1987 and appearing now in a new edition based on the definitive text. "They're young or old, hard or soft, polished or rough...and now, just like people, they're spattered with blood by the war." Kadare, dark-horse winner of the inaugural Man Booker International Prize in 2005, based this narrative on his own childhood experiences in the mountainside city of Gjirokaster, Albania, occupied alternately by Italy, Greece, and Germany during World War II. The magical setting of a city of stone built around an ancient citadel is matched with dreamlike description and atmosphere; by thrusting these elements into a horrific modern conflict, Kadare creates fabulous tension. The book's other main asset is the unique and endearing voice of the impressionistic narrator, who finds himself caught between the grownups' hatred of the occupying forces and his instinctive love of the machinery of war; a scene in which his favorite plane bombs the city is heartbreaking. Surprisingly accessible for an author often referred to as difficult and Kafkaesque, this is a memorable and moving work. Recommended for all libraries.-Forest Turner, Suffolk Cty. House of Correction Lib., Boston Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.
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