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Wednesday, 27 January 2010

In focussing on the life of the prolific and courageous writer Ismail Kadare, a Professor of European Studies at The University of Western Australia has written the first full-length study in English of the battle for survival of literature in the hard-line Stalinist state of Albania.

Professor Peter Morgan's 400-page book, published by Legenda of Oxford and London, is a biography of the life of Albanian writer and patriot, Ismail Kadare (winner of the inaugural International Man Booker Prize in 2005) under the Albanian dictatorship of Enver Hoxha.

" Ismail Kadare: The Writer and the Dictatorship 1957 - 1990 is the tale of two chess masters pitted against each other over three decades for the fate of Albania," Professor Morgan said.  "As well as being a writer of genius, Kadare was a brilliant tactician, who managed to survive in this most brutal and repressive of regimes.  You could say that Kadare, whom I've interviewed and met socially on various occasions, was like Scheherazade.  He kept himself and the Albanian people alive through his stories.

"Albanians comprise a small but important segment of multicultural Australia and through the work of Albania's greatest writer and intellectual, we can come to a better understanding of Albanians, their history and culture.  Many Albanians in this country would have family who endured Hoxha's dictatorship.

"He was an intelligent, power-hungry narcissist who wanted to show that his was a sophisticated communist regime.  He wanted to be seen as a man who furthered the arts.  Kadare had a kind of power over him in that his writing was well-known in the West, which afforded him protection of sorts.  Kadare played a dangerous game with Hoxha.

"Kadare wrote stories that superficially didn't contravene the dictatorship, but if people read between the lines, they learnt a lot about themselves and their situation.  Kadare was the dictator's nemesis.  He saw himself as competing with Hoxha for Albania."

Professor Morgan said Kadare's works were so important in Albanian culture that many were included as school texts.  "He lifted the language to a level capable of supporting great literature, while subtly attacking the powerful dictatorship."

Professor Morgan's next volume will focus on Kadare's life from 1990 to the present day.  He has received a $200,000 Australian Research Council grant to complete Kadare Post Communism: Albania, the Balkans and Europe in the Work of Ismail Kadare.

Media references

Winthrop Professor Peter Morgan (+61 8)  6488 2179
Janine MacDonald (UWA Public Affairs)  (+61 8)  6488 5563  /  (+61 4) 32 637 716

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