Agamemnon's Daughter

TRANSLATOR’S NOTE

This volume contains three stories written at different times, set in different historical periods, but linked to one another and to many other works of Ismail Kadare by recurrent characters, anecdotes, obsessions, and principles.

Agamemnon’s Daughter was written in Tirana around the time of the death, of Enver Hoxha, who ruled Albania for forty years. The action is placed in the real Tirana of the early 1980s, but its narrative takes us back to the classical roots of Western civilization — and of tyranny. Its sequel, The Successor, written many years later, brings the same characters back to life.

“The Blinding Order” was written in 1984 and is set in the Tanzimat, or “reform” period of the Ottoman Empire, in the nineteenth century. It speculates on the uses of terror in a context that is only superficially remote from modern authoritarian regimes. Mark-Alem, the central character of Kadare’s Palace of Dreams, makes a fleeting appearance; the main protagonists belong to a branch of the Köprülü clan, whose long history is chronicled throughout Kadare’s work.

“The Great Wall” was written in 1993, shortly after Kadare settled in Paris, The bridge built by the Ura family, whose story is told in The Three-Arched Bridge, here gives a key to the meaning of the Great Wall of China. We also encounter the horrifying Timur the Lame (Tamerlane), who gives such a stunning conclusion to The Pyramid, Kadare’s fable of ancient Egypt.

The first of these stories was translated from the French of Tedi Papavrami; the two others, from the French of Jusuf Vrioni. Some amendments have been made to the texts in consultation with the author, particularly with regards to Albanian names and spellings.

D.B.

Princeton, N J., 2006