Ismail Kadare, born in 1936 in the mountain town of Gjirokaster, near the Greek border, is Albania's best-known poet and novelist. Since the appearance of The General of the Dead Army in 1965, Kadare has published scores of stories and novels that make up a panorama of Albanian history linked by a constant meditation on the nature and human consequences of dictatorship. His works brought him into frequent conflict with the authorities from 1945 to 1985. In 1990 he sought political asylum in France, and now divides his time between Paris and Tirana. He is the winner of the first ever Man Booker International Prize.

His work is as immense as Balzac's, as unrelenting in its critique of dictatorship as Orwell's, and as disturbingly fantastical as Kafka's. It is an invention as well as a reflection of what it means to be Albanian, and an exploration of both the ugliness and the dignity of a small, ancient, oppressed nation. Kadare is perhaps the last 'national writer' of European history