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Life through quotes: Ismail Kadare

Life through quotes: Ismail Kadare
Ismail Kadare (1936-2024) at the Edinburgh International Book Fair (photo: Murdo Macleod / The Guardian, 2006)

Prepared by: The Guardian
Translation: Telegrafi.com

On totalitarianism
- The hell of communism, like any other hell, was drowning in the worst sense of the word. But literature transformed it into a life force, the force that helped you survive and keep your head up and win over the dictatorship.

– In a country of that kind, the first most important thing for a writer, the most essential, is this: don't take the regime seriously. You are a writer, you will have a much richer life than they; in one sense or another you are eternal compared to that kind of people, and you don't need to tire yourself of them after all.


On Enver Hoxha, the Albanian ruler from 1944 until his death in 1985
– When Hoxha broke with the Soviet Union in 1962, he was ready to return to Europe, but was refused, so he made an absurd short-lived alliance with China. When that backfired, he built thousands of anti-nuclear domes which he knew were useless, but wanted to create a fear psychosis. Albania suffered more than any other country in Eastern Europe.

- Hoxha imagined himself as an intellectual and poet who had been at the Sorbonne and did not want to be seen as an enemy of writers. Of course, he could kill me in "a car accident" or "suicide", as he did with many others.

On his qualification as a political writer
- My opinion is that I am not a political writer and, moreover - as far as real literature is concerned - there are actually no political writers. I think my writing is no more political than ancient Greek theater. In any political regime, I would have become the writer that I am.

- I have never claimed to be a "dissident", in the proper sense of the term. It was simply impossible to openly oppose Hoxha's regime, as it was to openly oppose Stalin during Stalin's reign in Russia. Dissent was the position that no one could hold, even for a few days, without facing the firing squad. On the other hand, my books themselves constitute a very visible form of resistance to the regime.

For international success
- On the one hand, this provided me with protection in relation to the regime, and on the other hand, I was constantly under surveillance. Because the doubt that haunted them was that "why does the Western bourgeoisie value a writer from a Stalinist country"?

For the Albanian language
- For me, as a writer, Albanian is simply an extraordinary means of expression - rich, malleable, suitable.

On the books
– I hated Soviet books, full of sun, with work in the fields, joyful spring, summer full of hope. The first time I heard the words "hope" and "hard work", I was tired.

- The founding father of Albanian literature is the writer of the 19th century, Naim Frashëri. Without having the greatness of Dante or Shakespeare, he is still the founder, an emblematic character. He wrote long epic poems, as well as lyrical poems, to awaken the national consciousness of Albania. After him came Gjergj Fishta. We can say that these two are the giants of Albanian literature, the ones that children study in schools. Later came other poets and writers who produced works perhaps better than both of them, but they do not occupy the same place in the nation's memory.

About censorship
– In the early 60s, life in Albania was pleasant and well organized. The writer could not have known that he should not write about the falsification of history.

– For a writer, personal freedom is not so important. It is not individual freedom that guarantees the greatness of literature, otherwise writers in democratic countries would be superior to all others. Some of the greatest writers wrote under dictatorship - Shakespeare, Cervantes. Great universal literature has always had a tragic relationship with freedom. The Greeks renounced absolute freedom and imposed order on chaotic mythology, like a tyranny. In the West, the problem is not freedom. There are other servitudes – lack of talent, thousands of mediocre books published each year.

- I created a group of literary works during the time of two diametrically opposed political systems: a tyranny that lasted 35 years (1955-1990) and 20 years of freedom. In both cases, what can destroy literature is the same thing: self-censorship.

On contemporary literature
- They say that contemporary literature is very dynamic, because it is influenced by cinema, television, and the speed of communication. But the opposite is true! If you compare the texts of ancient Greece with the literature of today, you will notice that the classics operated on a much larger terrain, painted on a much wider canvas, and had an infinitely larger dimension.

- It's laziness, all this noise about innovations, about new genres. There is real literature and then there is the rest.

On being a writer
- I don't work more than two hours a day.

– Writing is neither a happy nor an unhappy profession – it's something in between. It's almost a second life.

- I am very grateful for literature, because it gives me the opportunity to overcome the impossible. /Telegraph/