Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #131126 in Books
• Published on: 2009-03-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

Review
'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

Telegraph
Battle scenes predominate, and are admirably vivid, the narrative swirling and bursting

Scotsman
[this] translation may be considered as authentic as it is considered elegant and vivid

Customer Reviews

Gripping...Kadare is a wonderful story teller!
Translated from the Albanian language, this anti-historical novel embraces the events of a siege on an unnamed castle in Albania during the expansion of the Ottoman Empire in the 14th century into the Balkans and before the siege on Constantinople. Wonderfully written in colourful language, with gentle transitions from one place to another, Ismail Kadare educates the reader about the worries and struggles of both armies. This is achieved brilliantly by the insertion of inter-chapters. The historical background about `Skanderbeg', the principles of battles, siege warfare and the new weapons used at the time convinces to be thoroughly researched.
As the story unfolds mainly from the viewpoint of the besieging army, it manages to cleverly describe the Albanian populous facing the overwhelming power of the Ottoman armies. Somewhere between the lines you can read indirectly about Albania in the 20th century, e.g. the Russian dominance in 1969 and the atrocities of Milosevic in 1989. Overall I think this is a fantastic book, written by a very clever man!

A thought-provoking and hugely engrossing work of genius
I've been a fan of Kadare's for some time but I think this new book of his (I say new when in fact it first appeared in 1970!) is as good as anything I have read this year and one of the great novels about war I have ever read.

It tells the story of the Ottomans besieging a Christian fortress in the fifteenth century in Albania and does so in the most vivid and utterly convincing prose. You feel transported back in time and yet the novel is also timeless. I read a brilliant review by Adam Lively in The Sunday Times yesterday and he described how some of the intense battle scenes brought to mind Sauron's army besieging the citadel of Minas Tirith in the final part of the Lord of the Rings trilogy and he is right. It's every bit as bloody, tense and compelling.

But the novel is also a deeply philosophical work, asking timeless questions about war and revealing its futility. An existential masterpiece stained in blood and guts.

If you haven't read Kadare you are in for a treat and this is the place to start.

A profound thriller
Kadare is less economical in his use of words producing a creative, colourful and descriptive narrative of a tense prolongued seige, reflecting on the effects and consequences of war. As usual Kadare skilfully weaves profund alegory into an easily readable story with excitment, suspense and emotion. A fantastic read.