I haven’t read any other Ismail Kadare books before this one. I am going to. He’s an Albanian writer who wrote a lot of anti-authoritarian novels previously, and has been a perennially listed writer to maybe some day win the Nobel Prize (RIP Nobel Prize?). I also feel like maybe his best work is behind him. This book is interesting in a lot of ways, but it’s so utterly slight in its gravity and form that the promising idea, which is handled with care, does […]