Ismail Qadare passed away: Renowned Albanian novelist Ismail Kadare died in a hospital in Tirana, his publishing editor said Monday. He was 88. Kadare has long been mentioned as a possible contender for the Nobel Literature Prize.
Bujar Hudari, editor of the Onufri Publishing House, said the renowned writer died on Monday morning. A nurse at the hospital, who spoke on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to speak to the press, said he was taken to the emergency room after suffering a heart attack.
Kadare gained international recognition when his novel “The General of the Dead Army” was published in 1963, when Albania was still ruled by the communist government of the late dictator Enver Hoxha.
Kadare fled Albania to France in the fall of 1990, just months before the fall of the communist regime following student protests the previous December. He lived in Paris and recently returned to Tirana. Kadare has been awarded numerous international prizes for his works, which include more than 80 novels, plays, screenplays, poems, essays and short story collections translated into 45 languages.
