The Concert

From behind the closed door, the man shouts, 'Be on your way — you have no business here!'

'Open up, I am the messenger of Death'.

As spring arrives in the Albanian mountain town of B, some strange things are emerging in the thaw. Bank robbers strike the National Bank. Old terrors are dredged up from the shipwreck of history. And ultra-explosive state secrets are threatening to flood the entire nation. Mark, an artist, finds the peaceful rhythms of his life turned upside down by ancient love and modern barbarism and by the particular brutality of a country surprised and divided by its new freedom.

It is 1943, and the Second World War is ravaging Europe. Mussolini decides to pull out of his alliance with the Nazis, and withdraws the Italian troops occupying Albania. Soon after, Nazi forces invade Albania from occupied Greece. The first settlement in their path is the ancient stone city of Gjirokastër, an Albanian stronghold since the fourteenth century. The townsfolk have no choice but to surrender to the Nazis, but are confused when they see that one of the town’s residents, a certain Dr. Gurameto, seems to be showing the invading Nazi Colonel great hospitality. That evening, strains of Schubert from the doctor’s gramophone waft out into the cobbled streets of the city, and the sounds of a dinner party are heard. The sudden disappearance of the Nazis the next morning leaves the town wondering if they might have dreamt the events of the previous night. But as Albania moves into a period of occupation by the Nazis, and then is taken over by the communists, Dr. Gurameto is forced to answer for what happened on the evening of the Nazi’s invasion, and finally explain the events of that long, strange night.

Dealing with themes of resistance in a dictatorship, and steeped in Albanian folklore and legend, shows Kadare at the height of his powers.

In 1377, on the frontier between the crumbling Byzantine empire and the advancing Ottoman Turks, a mysterious work crew begins to construct a three-arched bridge, despite warnings of war. A superbly realized work of historical fiction and at once a Kafkaesque parable of the barbarism currently sweeping its author's Albanian homeland.

Роман «Генерал армии мертвых» — это произведение о минувшей мировой войне, несмотря на то, что действие развертывается много позже, в мирное время. Два официальных представителя неназванной страны (но, несомненно, Италии, на сей счет у читателя не остается никаких сомнений) прибывают в Тирану с печальной миссией: посетить места захоронений своих солдат и с помощью выделенных албанскими властями рабочих произвести эксгумацию с тем, чтобы вернуть останки армии на родину…

Этот роман албанского писателя И. Кадарэ принес своему автору мировую известность. Он переведен на многие языки, а в 1983 году итальянский режиссер Лучано Товоли, известный российскому зрителю, в частности, как оператор ленты «Профессия: репортер», снял по нему фильм с Марчелло Мастрояни и Мишелем Пикколи в главных ролях. Фильм с успехом прошел на европейском экране.

На русский язык произведения И. Кадарэ, поэта, прозаика, прежде не переводились.