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The Siege
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The book

'A plot as sparse, elemental and timeless as Homer, but related in an idiom of dread, ambiguity and irony that could come only from our own cynical contemporary dilemmas.' Sunday Herald 'Kadare brings heroic daring to this brilliant exposé of the folly of war and the clash of civilisations.' Irish Times 'It is Kadare's great achievement to create individuals who are at the same time archetypes . . . Powerfully atmospheric . . . Fascinating.' Times Literary Supplement 'You don't have to make the connection between the world portrayed here and Hoxha's Albania to find this novel engrossing, to be awed by the scale of Kadare's ambition and achievement.' Allan Massie, Scotsman 'The Anglophone world is only just discovering the strength of Kadare's fiction.' Financial Times

The Reviews

"one of the most important voices in literature today…a gritty meaty look at what happens when two tribes go to war…but the fact that Kadare wrote the novel in 1969-70…lends the piece extra depth as a political allegory on Soviet dominance"
Alan Chadwick, Metro

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Publication details

Published: 05 Mar 2009
Paperback
336 pages
Price:  £7.99
ISBN: 9781847671226

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  Hardback

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Ismail Kadare

ISMAIL KADARE was born in 1936 in Gjirokaster, in the south of Albania. He studied in Tirana and Moscow, returning to Albania in 1960 after the country broke ties with the Soviet Union. Translations of his novels have since been published in more than forty countries, and in 2005 he became the first winner of the Man Booker International Prize. 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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