On Monday, it was reported that renowned Albanian novelist Ismail Kadare had passed away after being rushed to a hospital in Tirana. He was 88 years old. Kadare had long been considered a possible contender for the Nobel Literature Prize.
Albanian President Bajram Begaj expressed his condolences, saying that Albania lost a genius of letters and a spiritual emancipator, while the Balkans lost a poet of its myths and the world lost one of the most renowned representatives of modern literature. The news was confirmed by Onufri Publishing House editor Bujar Hudhri, who revealed that Kadare passed away on Monday morning after being taken to the emergency room due to a cardiac arrest.
Kadare gained international recognition with the publication of his novel “The General of the Dead Army” in 1963, a time when Albania was still under the communist rule of dictator Enver Hoxha. In the fall of 1990, Kadare left Albania and moved to France, just a few months before the fall of the communist regime in Albania following student protests the previous December. He resided in Paris and had only recently returned to Tirana. Last year, French President Emmanuel Macron honored him with the title of Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor during a visit to Albania. France had previously honored him as a foreign associate of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences and as Commander of the Legion of Honor.
Throughout his career, Kadare received numerous international awards for his extensive body of work, which included over 80 novels, plays, screenplays, poetry, essays, and story collections translated into 45 languages