The Concert
Ismail Kadare
A chilling portrait of life under Communist rule by Albania's most important writer
It's the 1970s and cracks are starting to appear in the alliance between China and its Communist cohort Albania. When an Albanian steps on the foot of a Chinese diplomat the tension cranks up – couriers between Tirana and Beijing carry annotated x-rays of the foot back and forth. The Chinese intend to punish their interfering little ally discreetly. But is the Sino-Albanian axis about to come adrift? This is Kadare’s surreal black comedy about the inner sanctums of political power and the mysterious causal chains that transform ordinary lives.
‘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
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About Ismail Kadare
Reviews for The Concert
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