Ismail Kadare

A coming-of-age tale by the inaugural Man Booker International Prize winner follows a young man's efforts to juggle the challenges of growing up in Albania during the terrors of World War II, a period marked by devastating cruelty, betrayals, and simple pleasures.

A Novel

Chronicle in Stone

Mirsad

Ozge Kara

Amazing. Kadare is a genius, I wish I could read him in Albanian.

Masterful in its simplicity, Chronicle in Stone is a touching coming-of-age story and a testament to the perseverance of the human spirit. Surrounded by the magic of beautiful women and literature, a boy must endure the deprivations of war as he suffers the hardships of growing up. His sleepy country has just thrown off centuries of tyranny, but new waves of domination inundate his city. Through the boy s eyes, we see the terrors of World War II as he witnesses fascist invasions, allied bombings, partisan infighting, and the many faces of human cruelty as well as the simple pleasures of life.Evacuating to the countryside, he expects to find an ideal world full of extraordinary things, but discovers instead an archaic backwater where a severed arm becomes a talisman and deflowered girls mysteriously vanish. Woven between the chapters of the boy s story are tantalizing fragments of the city s history. As the devastation mounts, the fragments lose coherence, and we perceive firsthand how the violence of war destroys more than just buildings and bridges.

Gary Homewood

Poetic description of Albanian town and its resolute inhabitants as it changes hands during WW2, from the unique point of view of a small boy.

Chronicle in Stone A Novel

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