The Fall of the Stone City

by Ismail Kadare (Author), John Hodgson (Translator)

New
Paperback
2013
$11.07

Shortlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2013. In September 1943, Nazi troops advance on the ancient gates of Gjirokaster, Albania. The very next day, the Germans vanish without a trace. As the townsfolk wonder if they might have dreamt the events of the previous night, rumours circulate of a childhood friendship between a local dignitary and the invading Nazi Colonel, a reunion in the town square and a fateful dinner party that would transform twentieth-century Europe. A captivating novel of resistance in a dictatorship, and steeped in Albanian folklore, The Fall of the Stone City shows Kadare at the height of his powers.

Synopsis

Shortlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2013. In September 1943, Nazi troops advance on the ancient gates of Gjirokaster, Albania. The very next day, the Germans vanish without a trace. As the townsfolk wonder if they might have dreamt the events of the previous night, rumours circulate of a childhood friendship between a local dignitary and the invading Nazi Colonel, a reunion in the town square and a fateful dinner party that would transform twentieth-century Europe. A captivating novel of resistance in a dictatorship, and steeped in Albanian folklore, The Fall of the Stone City shows Kadare at the height of his powers.

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 176
Edition: Main
Publisher: Canongate Books
Published: 05 Dec 2013
ISBN 10: 0857860127
ISBN 13: 9780857860125
Book Overview: The much anticipated new novel from the Man Booker International Prize winner - a story of the great city of Gjirokaster and of a secret meeting that may have changed the face of Europe in the twentieth century
Prizes: Long-listed for Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2013.

Media Reviews

One of the most important voices in literature today * * Metro * *
A master storyteller -- John Carey
One of the world's greatest living writers -- Simon Sebag Montefiore
There are very few writers alive today with the depth, power and resonance of this remarkable novelist * * Herald * *
His fiction offers invaluable insights into life under tyranny - his historical allegories point both to the grand themes and small details that make up life in a restrictive environment. He is a great writer, by any nation's standards * * Financial Times * *
One of the great writers of our time * * Scotsman * *
Ismail Kadare has sometimes been compared with Kafka, and you can see why * * Scottish Mail on Sunday * *
There are books which seem less the second-time round; Kadare's seem more . . . one can relish his mastery of tone and the tireless probing intelligence of narrative -- Allan Massie * * The Scotsman * *
Both in his deployment of material and in his vision of life, Kadare is the equal of the often invoked Kafka * * Literary Review * *
Ismail Kadare is a great writer, by any nation's standards * * Financial Times * *
He is seemingly incapable of writing a book that fails to be interesting * * New York Times * *
One of the most compelling novelists now writing in any language * * Wall Street Journal * *
Kadare is one of Europe's most consistently interesting and powerful contemporary novelists, a writer whose stark, memorable prose imprints itself on the reader's consciousness * * Los Angeles Times * *
An outstanding feat of imagination delivered in inimitable style, alternating between the darkly elusive and the menacingly playful -- Peter Carty * * Independent on Sunday * *
This novel is a perfect showcase for [Kadare's] wonderfully powerful, eccentric storytelling -- Kate Saunders * * The Times * *
Brilliant but unsettling * * Irish Mail on Sunday * *
The Fall of the Stone City is written with a persuasive lightness of touch. Kadare's authorial tone is invariably ironic and his fiction is playful, as if he has never lost sight of exactly how ridiculous humankind tends to be * * Irish Times * *
A mysterious and masterful novel that captures a pivotal moment in Albania's history * * Independent * *
[Kadare] is on brilliant but unsettling form here * * The Mail on Sunday * *
The story is a tragic-comic satire of the inhuman senselessness of the Albanian (and any other) dictatorship . . . [Kadare's] work gives a unique insight into the history of this, the strangest corner of Europe -- Edward James * * Historical Novel Society * *
A dreamworld where history and fiction come together. . . Ismail Kadare's subject, as always, is the presence of the past. . . more astonishing and truthful than any mere documentary chronicle * * Guardian * *
In his latest novel, Kadare features many of his motifs-bloody Balkan histories; bleak totalitarianism lives under silky threads of magical realism-that have made him a perpetual shortlister for Noble Prize laureate. A thoughtful exploration of the colluding forces of fascism and communism and a country caught between them that is at once obscure and enigmatic, lucid and insistent * * Publishers Weekly * *
Mesmerizing. . . A well-crafted translation of a European masterpiece * * Booklist (starred review) * *
A harsh but artful study of power, truth and personal integrity... [The Fall of the Stone City is] an ironic, sober critique of the way totalitarianism rewrites history, from an Albanian author who's long been the subject of Nobel whispers * * Kirkus Reviews * *
The Fall of the Stone City is playful, supremely sarcastic, mystifying, charming and bleak, by turns and all at once. Kadare raises ambiguity to an art form, and perfectly evokes the uncertainties of life under arbitrary rule * * New Zealand Herald * *

Author Bio

Born in 1936, Ismail Kadare is Albania's best-known poet and novelist. Translations of his novels have appeared in more than forty countries. In 2005 he was awarded the first Man Booker International Prize for 'a body of work written by an author who has had a truly global impact'. The Fall of the Stone City was shortlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2013. Ismail Kadare is the recipient of the highly prestigious 2009 Premio Principe de Asturias de las Letras in Spain.