Ismail Kadare is among the most celebrated and awarded European writers alive today. To date, he has won the Man Booker International Prize, the Jerusalem Prize, the Prince of Asturias Prize, and in 2016, he was appointed to the National Order of the Legion of Honour in France. Long considered a contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature, Kadare has been shortlisted for the prize numerous times.
Kadare was born in the southern region of what was then the Kingdom of Albania in 1936. He first began publishing short stories at the young age of 12, and released several collections of poetry as a teenager. After receiving a scholarship, Kadare traveled to Moscow to study literature, where he...