Chronicle in Stone by Ismail Kadare
If I hadn’t been planning a holiday in Albania later this year I would very probably never have heard of Ismail Kadare. His Wikipedia entry says
Kadare is regarded by some as one of the greatest European writers and intellectuals of the 20th century and, in addition, as a universal voice against totalitarianism. In 2005 he won the inaugural Man Booker International Prize and in 2016 he was a Commandeur de la Légion d’Honneur recipient.
The article lists several other honours, and reports that he has several times been suggested for the Nobel Prize for Literature. My Albanian guidebook says that “Chronicle in Stone” is one of his more ‘approachable’ works, by which it means you don’t need an in-depth knowledge of Albanian history and culture to appreciate it.
The book is set in the city of Gjirokastër, a city of tall stone houses, cobbled streets and alleyways, during the second world war. The story is told through the eyes of a young boy. We are, I believe, not told his name nor his age, but there is a large cast of other characters whose stories unfold through the book. The boy himself might be 9 or 10 years old, possibly a little older; it’s hard to judge as his sheltered life means he is immature and inexperienced by modern standards.
In his world inanimate objects seem to have a life of their own. The houses and streets can be calm or angry; the city itself is like a character in the book. The people of the city can still be upset and frightened by magic and witchcraft. War intrudes on this enclosed world, alternately fascinating and frightening him. The Italians, the Greeks and the Germans in turn attack and occupy the city. The British bomb it. The various Albanian factions including the Communist partisans fight for control as the foreigners retreat.
All this is seen through the boy’s eyes, helped in the book by short extracts from a chronicle and fragments of proclamations from the occupying forces. Kadare’s technique is compelling: he manages to convey the turmoil and horrors without generally describing them explicitly. The effect on the reader is cumulative; by the end of the book I certainly felt I had read something substantial. I shall try the other ‘approachable’ book, “Broken April”.
The foreword by the book’s English language editor David Bellos gives a good background to the history of the time and the combatants involved.
Footnote: Gjirokastër is a real city which I shall visit on my holiday. Kadare was born there and so was Enver Hoxha, Albania’s post-war isolationist dictator.
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