General Of The Dead Army - Softcover

Ismail Kadare

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0099518260 ISBN 13: 9780099518266

Publisher: Vintage Classics, 2008

Synopsis

Twenty years after the end of the Second World War, an Italian general is despatched to Albania to recover his country's dead. Once there he meets a German general who is engaged upon an identical mission, and their conversations brings out into the open the extent of their horror and guilt, newly exacerbated by their present task. As they descend from the callous trivialities of their gruesome business, past and present, to suffering self-disgust, the author gives us glimpses of the lives of the people whose graves they are unearthing.

About this title

Review:

The General of the Dead Army, Ismail Kadare's meditation on the consequences of war, is a hugely moving account of duty and loss. It is 20 years since the end of the Second World War and an Italian army general is sent to Albania to search again for the bodies of those who lost their lives in the campaign. He is armed with maps, lists, measurements, dental and other records. He tours the countryside organising digs and disinternments and, as he tries to find the dead sons of forgotten families, he wonders at the sense, and scale, of his task. He discusses and argues with the curt Italian priest who is accompanying him. He finds his footsteps followed, sometimes anticipated, by a fellow general who is also looking for bodies; the bodies of his German countrymen. He struggles with the Albanian countryside, weather, labourers who work for him and peasants who watch their work. And he fights the despair that grows as the size, scope and, ultimately, the hopelessness of his task becomes ever more apparent.

Kadare's plaintive novel is a consistently heartfelt lament to all those who have died and been effected by war but it is also a beautiful work displaying the skills that make him one of the great modern European writers. --Mark Thwaite

Review:

"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)

"A novelist of dazzling mastery" (Paul Binding Independent)

"Astonishing...his finest work" (Azar Nafisi, Man Booker judge and author of 'Reading Lolita in Tehran' Guardian)

"With its metonymic realism and fidelity to its characters, The General of the Dead Army reminds us why his work is so valued" (New Statesman)

"Literary gold dust - haunting, bleakly comedic and ultimately horrific" (The Times)

About this edition

• Publisher: Vintage Classics
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0099518260
• ISBN 13: 9780099518266
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272