Overview

In a seamless mosaic of dreams and games, a young boy reflects on events as his hometown in Albania falls to a series of invaders. Amid floods and bombings, his own innocence and wonder are lost forever in the madness and brutality of the Second World War. A disturbing mix of tragedy and comedy, politics and sexuality, Chronicle in Stone is a fascinating masterpiece about what it means to grow up in a turbulent world.

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9781786894496

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A great novel . . . A joyful, often comic piece of work -- James Wood * * New Yorker * * Sophisticated and accomplished in its poetic prose and narrative deftness -- John Updike * * New Yorker * * A master storyteller -- JOHN CAREY Ismail Kadare has sometimes been compared with Kafka, and you can see why * * Mail on Sunday * * There are very few writers alive today with the depth, power and resonance of this remarkable novelist * * Herald * * Chronicle in Stone is stunning, the quintessential tale of war seen through a child's eyes -- Susan Salter Reynolds * * Los Angeles Times * * Writing like this is hard to stop quoting . . . It is musical not only in rhythms that survive in this deft . . . translation but in its most elemental perceptions -- Evan Eisenberg * * The Nation * * [Albania's] most remarkable export: the novels of Ismail Kadare -- Ken Kalfus * * The Village Voice Literary Supplement * * Chronicle in Stone is epic in its simplicity; the history of a young Albanian and a primitive Albania awakening into the modern world -- Michael Dregni * * Minneapolis Star Tribune * *

Author Information

Born in 1936, Ismail Kadare was Albania's best-known poet and novelist. Translations of his novels have appeared in more than forty countries. In 2005, he won the inaugural Man Booker International Prize for 'a body of work written by an author who has had a truly global impact'. He is the recipient of the highly prestigious 2009 Principe de Asturias de las Letras in Spain. He died in 2024, aged 88. David Bellos, Director of the Program in Translation at Princeton University, is also the translator of Georges Perec's Life A User's Manual and a winner of the Goncourt Prize for biography. He has translated seven of Ismail Kadare's novels, and in 2005 was awarded the Man Booker International Prize for his translations of Kadare's work.

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