Ismail Kadare, born in 1936 in the mountain town of Gjirokastër, 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 of the human consequences of dictatorship. Kadare's 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 inaugural Man Booker International Prize.

"His finest book is The Concert, an epic study of the Albanians when living under the thumb of their sole world ally, the Chinese. It is half realism, half Borgesian, and the form and content jointly stun" Independent "The Concert is a splendidly deep and serious novel that entirely transcends, as it were, its unremarkable outer garment... Kadare's achievement is to dramatise truthfully throughout. This is a book to read and re-read" Guardian "It is Shakespearian in its sweep of history with its insertions of poetic and theatrical farce and its description of the contortions Albanians had to perform to survive Marxist doctrine" Sydney Morning Herald "The Concert is among the richest, most complex and most challenging works of his fictional cycle... Kadare's achievement is to have found once again the set of tricks that create the illusion of real life on the printed page" Sydney Morning Herald "He has been compared to Gogol, Kafka and Orwell. But Kadare's is an original voice, universal yet deeply rooted in his own soil" Independent on Sunday