Our December Author: Ismail Kadare

Not the most complete Wikipedia biography for Ismail Kadare (The Successor) but it's a start, with a bit more from the BBC here. His English translator weighs in on his translation of a (French) translation. For a taste of the controversy surrounding the author, try this essay. I suspect there may be more interviews available in French, but here's one from the Times Online.

Bonus New Yorker short story here.

For December: The Successor by Ismail Kadare

For December, we have selected The Successor by Ismail Kadare:

A powerful political novel based on the sudden, mysterious death of the man who had been handpicked to succeed the hated Albanian dictator Enver Hoxha. Did he commit suicide or was he murdered? That is the burning question. The man who died by his own hand, or another's, was Mehmet Shehu, the presumed heir to the ailing dictator, Enver Hoxha. So sure was the world that he was next in line, he was known as The Successor. And then, shortly before he was to assume power, he was found dead. THE SUCCESSOR is simultaneously a mystery novel, an historical novel-based on actual events and buttressed by the author's private conversations with the son of the real-life Mehmet Shehu-and a psychological novel (How do you live when nothing is sure?). Vintage Kadare, THE SUCCESSOR seamlessly blends dream and reality, legendary past, and contemporary history.