The General of the Dead Army (novel)

The General of the Dead Army (Albanian: Gjenerali i ushtrisë së vdekur) is a 1963 novel by the Albanian writer Ismail Kadare. It is the author's most critically acclaimed novel.[1] Kadare was encouraged to write the book by Drago Siliqi, literary critic and director of the state-owned publishing house Naim Frashëri.[2]

The General of the Dead Army
First English-language edition
AuthorIsmail Kadare
Original titleGjenerali i Ushtrisë së vdekur
TranslatorDerek Coltman
CountryAlbania
LanguageAlbanian
GenreHistory
PublisherSh.B. Naim Frashëri
W. H. Allen
Publication date
1963
Published in English
1971
Pages264
ISBN9780099518266

The English translation by Derek Coltman, first published by W. H. Allen, was made not directly from the Albanian, but from the 1970 French edition published by Albin Michel. A revised English edition was published by The Harvill Press in 2000, in light of the revised French edition published by Fayard in 1998, and was reprinted by Vintage Press in 2008.

Plot

In the early 1960s, nearly 20 years after the end of the Second World War, an Italian general, accompanied by a priest who is also an Italian army colonel, is sent to Albania to locate and collect the bones of his countrymen who had died during the war and return them for burial in Italy. As they organise digs and disinterment, they wonder at the scale of their task. The general talks to the priest about the futility of war and the meaninglessness of the enterprise. As they go deeper into the Albanian countryside they find they are being followed by another general who is looking for the bodies of German soldiers killed in World War II. Like his Italian counterpart, the German struggles with a thankless job looking for remains to take back home for burial, and questions the value of such gestures of national face value.

Reception

The novel has received many positive reviews. Richard Eder of The New York Times stated that "Kadare advances wryly and dryly into the darkness...[he] doesn't do messages; he brings them to lethal life".[3] The Boston Globe called it "a powerful and poignant Albanian novel". Alan Brownjohn of The Times Literary Supplement praised the novel by calling it "a profoundly moving novel...rich in poignant details".[4]

It was listed on Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century.

Translations

It was first translated in Bulgarian by Marina Marinova,[5] published in 1966.[6] After that, it was translated in Serbo-Croatian by Esad Mekuli and published in 1968.[7] Then it was translated in Turkish by Attila Tokatlı and Necdet Sander and published in 1970 from Sander editions in Istanbul.[8]

Adaptations

Films

Theatrical

The book has been adapted for the stage and is a commonly performed play in Albanian theaters and in some neighboring countries.[9]

References

See also

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.