One year without Ismaïl Kadaré (1936–2024)
A time of reflection and memory
A year already. On 1 July 2024, Ismaïl Kadaré passed away in Tirana, leaving the world of literature bereft of one of its most moving voices. Twelve months have gone by, and yet his presence remains intact in every page of his books, in every debate he continues to inspire.
A year of rediscovery
We, the members of the association “Les Amis d’Ismaïl Kadaré” – the Friends of Ismaïl Kadaré – have lived this first year without him as a long dialogue with his work. The initial grief has given way to a form of renewed companionship. We reread him differently, we discover him still, and we grasp more fully the depth of his legacy.
A timeless body of work
This year has also allowed us to see just how much Kadaré’s work transcends the circumstances of its creation. The General of the Dead Army, Broken April, The Palace of Dreams, Chronicle in Stone: these novels continue to speak to today’s readers with the same power as when they were first published.
Many people, after his death, have (re)discovered his books. Younger generations find in his pages a political lucidity and a literary mastery that have lost none of their relevance. His reflections on totalitarian mechanisms, on the manipulation of history, on the weight of national myths and on the fragility of freedom resonate with a disturbing sharpness in our own era.
The urgency of his thought
The Palace of Dreams, in particular, that masterly allegory of surveillance and control, challenges us today perhaps even more than it did yesterday. His chronicles of bureaucratic absurdity and state violence continue to illuminate contemporary excesses. Kadaré possessed that rare ability to transform Albanian history into a universal fable, and it is this that makes reading him inexhaustible.
Through our meetings and exchanges, we see that his work belongs neither to Albania nor to France alone, his two homelands. It belongs to all those who seek to understand the levers of power, to all those who refuse forgetfulness, to all those who believe that literature can be a form of resistance.
Our commitment continues
Over the course of this year, our association has mobilised to launch new projects in the service of Kadaré’s memory. We have also received testimonies from readers across the world, sharing what Kadaré has meant to them. Some discovered a new form of literature thanks to him, others found in his pages the courage to resist, and still others simply drew from them the beauty they needed.
A promise kept
A year ago, in our first statement, we promised to keep his legacy alive. That promise, we are keeping. Every event, every reading, every discussion around his texts is a way of keeping him alive among us.
This first year without him has given us dazzling proof: the man has gone, but his voice continues to resound, clear and necessary.
Towards the future
On this first anniversary of his passing, we do not look only backwards. We also turn towards the future, with the certainty that future generations will read Kadaré as we read Kafka or Orwell. His work has crossed borders and decades; it will cross centuries.
Our mission goes on: to transmit, to explain, to celebrate. To ensure that his name is never forgotten, that his books never gather dust, that his political lucidity and literary mastery continue to inspire those who believe in the power of words.
Faleminderit, një vit pas*
Thank you, Ismaïl, for this first year in which you have accompanied us in a different way. Thank you for leaving us a body of work so rich that a whole lifetime would not be enough to exhaust it. Thank you for making literature an act of resistance and hope.
We miss you, but you are here, present in every page, in every debate, in every new reader who discovers your universe.
“I would have liked to go on believing a while longer in the virtues of literature that has not yet come to pass. In the end, I owed it that freedom that existed nowhere else but in dreams.”
– Ismaïl Kadaré, La Poupée (2015)
* Thank you, one year on