“The name of the Albanian novelist Ismail Kadare regularly comes up at Nobel Prize time, and he is still a good bet to win it one of these days. . . . He is seemingly incapable of writing a book that fails to be interesting.” —The New York Times
“A harsh but artful study of power, truth and personal integrity . . . [The Fall of the Stone City is] an ironic, sober critique of the way totalitarianism rewrites history, from an Albanian author who’s long been the subject of Nobel whispers.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Kadare’s books reflect his country and are imbued with Albanian myths and metaphors. The book gives both the sense and essence of a totalitarian state in language that, while straightforward, is literary and often allegorical. . . . The Fall of the Stone City is a strong addition to Kadare’s body of translated work and which further demonstrates that he is deserving of wider acclaim and readership.” —Seattle Post-Intelligencer
“Mesmerizing. . . A well-crafted translation of a European masterpiece.” —Booklist (starred review)
“A dreamworld where history and fiction come together . . . Ismail Kadare’s subject, as always, is the presence of the past. . . . more astonishing and truthful than any mere documentary chronicle.” —The Guardian
“In his latest novel, Kadare features many of his motifs—bloody Balkan histories; bleak totalitarianism lives under silky threads of magical realism—that have made him a perpetual shortlister for Noble Prize laureate. A thoughtful exploration of the colluding forces of fascism and communism and a country caught between them that is at once obscure and enigmatic, lucid and insistent.” —Publishers Weekly
“An incisve, biting work. . . . [The Fall of the Stone City] refines our understanding of satire’s nature. . . . If you don’t know [Kadare’s] work, this is a good place to begin. I hope you won’t stop here.” —Alan Cheuse, NPR
“The town’s quirks, destiny, and characters—comic, extravagant, and all but floating an inch or two off the ground—are in some ways reminiscent of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. . . . After a first part centering around a cheerfully extravagant wartime story, cracks develop; a hallucinatory crumbling ensues and descends into tightening nightmare. . . . the nexus between totalitarianism and madness is twisted tight. . . . The novel starts in the blithe wackiness of a place where gossip and rumor play the role that facts might anywhere else.” —Richard Eder, The Boston Globe
“Complex and exacting.” —Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal
“The themes of Kadare’s novels—the allegories of empires old and new; the question of history and its meaning; his quiet yet persistent belief in the perseverance of the human spirit—all these apply across time and boundaries. The context for his stories is not just Albania at various points in history, it is us—the readers, and the worlds that we create in our own minds and hearts.” —Nina Sabolik, World Literature Today
“The sadism of totalitarianism is satirized as absurdist but lethal theater. . . [Kadare’s] novels are often surreal mixes of chaos, bureaucratic brutality, military overkill, and hardheaded survival (or not) by characters trapped inside a nightmare of history in a country caught in the snares of fascism and Soviet communism. This one is no exception. . . . The story takes on the flavor of mythology and folklore.” —Alan Davis, The Hudson Review
“A cryptic narrative suggesting that the past not only haunts us but—perhaps equally disturbing—that full disclosure will never be possible. Even under duress or torture. The translation by John Hodgson is seamless.” —Charles R. Larson, Counterpunch
“Multiple mysteries take shape as The Fall of the Stone City begins . . . Kadare, who is considered a Nobel literature prize contender, has an understated, elegiac style that throws the events into relief.” —Rhonda Dickey, The Philadelphia Inquirer
“Kadare was awarded the inaugural International Man Booker prize in 2005, and in this disorienting, absorbing, Kafkaesque novel his skill is clearly evident as he conjures the city’s nervy mood. Plot advances obliquely through a whirl of rumors to the doctor’s horrifying final act. A masterful performance.” —Daily Mail
“The prose frequently evokes Albania’s rich tradition of folklore, invariably in unsettling fashion. . . . This is classic Postmodern fiction; literature which tells us that we can never be sure about the past. . . . The Fall of the Stone City is a masterly recuperation; an outstanding feat of imagination delivered in inimitable style, alternating between the darkly elusive and the menacingly playful.” —Peter Carty, The Independent on Sunday
“The Fall of the Stone City is playful, supremely sarcastic, mystifying, charming and bleak, by turns and all at once. Kadare raises ambiguity to an art form, and perfectly evokes the uncertainties of life under arbitrary rule.” —The New Zealand Herald
“This wonderful little novel, by the intriguing Albanian master Ismail Kadare, opens in September 1943. . . . Few writers use deceptive simplicity as well as Kadare. The Fall of the Stone City is as witty and as dark as is everything he has written in a magnificent career. . . . In Kadare’s fiction, the living and the dead are always closely connected and dead men, according to myth, are invited to dine. It all sounds very bleak, yet The Fall of the Stone City is written with a persuasive lightness of touch. Kadare’s authorial tone is invariably ironic and his fiction is playful, as if he has never lost sight of exactly how ridiculous humankind tends to be.” —The Irish Times
“One of the greatest storytellers in the world, Ismail Kadare has written another masterpiece. Superbly translated into English, The Fall of the Stone City is one of those novels that leaves the reader feeling privileged to have been whisked away into another world, into unimaginable lives and magnificent stories of joy and tragedy. . . . a Kafkaesque nightmare, an incredibly powerful tale of historical drama and human tragedy. Lovers of great literature should feast on a book like this, devouring the story and despairing when there are simply no more pages to turn.” —Rob Minshull, Australian Broadcasting Corporation Weekend Bookworm
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