Synopses & Reviews
A new novel from the acclaimed winner of the inaugural Man Booker International Prize for achievement in fiction.
The Successor is a powerful political novel based on the sudden, mysterious death of the man who had been handpicked to succeed the hated Albanian dictator Enver Hoxha.
The man who died was Mehmet Shehu, the presumed heir to the ailing dictator. The world was so certain that he was next in line that he was known as The Successor. And then, shortly before he was to assume power, he was found dead. Did he commit suicide or was he murdered?
The Successor is simultaneously a page-turning mystery, a historical novel - based on actual events and buttressed by the authors private conversations with the son of the real-life Mehmet Shehu - and a psychological challenge to the reader to decide, How does one live when nothing is sure? The Successor seamlessly blends dream and reality, legendary past, and contemporary history, and proves again that Kadare stands alongside Márquez, Canetti, and Auster.
From the Hardcover edition.
About the Author
Ismail Kadare is Albanias best-known poet and novelist. His first novel,
The General of the Dead Army, made his name in Albania. After 1986, under the Communist regime, Kadares work was smuggled out of Albania by his French publisher, Éditions Fayard, and stored in safe keeping for later publication. Translations of his many novels have been published in more than forty countries.
Kadare was granted political asylum in France in October 1990. Since 1995, he has divided his time between Paris and Tirana. In 1996, Kadare was elected foreign associate member of the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques in France.
In June 2005, Kadare was named the winner of the inaugural Man Booker International Prize for his lifelong achievements in fiction.
From the Hardcover edition.