The Successor

Posted on by

A new novel from the acclaimed winner of the inaugural Man Booker International Prize for achievement in fiction.The Successor is a powerful political novel based on the sudden, mysterious death of the man who had been handpicked to succeed the hated Albanian dictator Enver Hoxha The man who died was Mehmet Shehu, the presumed heir to the ailing dictator The world was so certain that he was next in line that he was known as The Successor And then, shortly before he was to assume power, he was found dead Did he commit suicide or was he murdered The Successor is simultaneously a page turning mystery, a historical novel based on actual events and buttressed by the author s private conversations with the son of the real life Mehmet Shehu and a psychological challenge to the reader to decide, How does one live when nothing is sure The Successor seamlessly blends dream and reality, legendary past, and contemporary history, and proves again that Kadare stands alongside M rquez, Canetti, and Auster. From the Hardcover edition. Best Read eBook The Successor By Ismail Kadare – kino-fada.fr Scary And familiar Dictatorship and authentic literature are incompatible The writer is the natural enemy of dictatorship Dictatorship cannot accept the multifaceted truth of a writer, and a writer cannot accept the empty propaganda words of personality cult When a writer starts a novel, he puts himself into opposition to dictatorship, by thinking for himself I wonder if that applies to readers as well Many years ago, I had a phase when I read almost anything by Ismail Kadare that fell i Scary And familiar Dictatorship and authentic literature are incompatible The writer is the natural enemy of dictatorship Dictatorship cannot accept the multifaceted truth of a writer, and a writer cannot accept the empty propaganda words of personali...Based on real events, The Successor tells the story of Mehmet Shehu who was considered as the successor to the office of Albanian dictator Enver Hoxha who many people hated However, on the night of December 13, 1981, Shehu was found dead inside his room with bolt in lock from the inside Despite the lock, people did not believe that it was suicide but foul play His daughter, an architect and the minister of interior told different versions of the story based on the last interactions with Shehu Based on real events, The Successor tells the...It is typical in a work of fiction to start with a disclaimer, something which includes the caveat Names, places , and incidents either are the product of the author s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental No such disclaimer here Instead, Kadare promises Any resemblance between the characters and circumstances of this tale and real people and events is inevitable The eponym in The Successor is It is typical in a work of fiction to start with a disclaimer, something which includes the caveat Names, places , and incidents either are the product of the author s imagination or are used fict...Another great book by Albanian author Ismail Kadare It deals with the disappearance of Mehmet Shehu, Enver Hoxha s right hand man When I visited Albania in 1984, Enver Hoxha was still alive but Shehu s ...The Successor is one of those rare books that can be read with equal pleasure by lovers of psychological or analytical writings, and by readers looking for action Written in the form of a thriller, the novel manages in some miraculous way to go to the essence not only of Communism, but of all dictatorships, revealing with unusual psychological finesse how throughout history there are some archetypal dramas that keep repeating themselves, from Greek myths to Macbeth to the history of the Balka The Successor is one of those rare books that can be read with equal pleasure by lovers of psychological or analytical writings, and by readers looking for action Written in the form of a thriller, the novel manages in some miraculous way to go to the essence not only of Communism, but of all dictatorships, revealing with unusual psychological finesse ...We are fortunate that Albania s Ismail Kadare won the first Man Booker International Prize in 2005 because it resulted in his works being translated into over thirty languages and introduced to the world By the way, he faced serious competition for the award as the finalists included Gabriel Garc a M rquez, Milan Kundera, Margaret Atwood, Saul Bellow, Gunther Grass, Naguib Mahfouz, Doris Lessing, Kenzabur e, Stanis aw Lem, Ian McEwan, Philip Roth, Muriel Spark and John Updike I count six Nob We are fortu...Fascinating This is a novelization of the last days and death of Mehmet Shehu, the anointed successor of Enver Hoxha, the Stalin like dictator of Albania The names were changed to protect the guilty , and I don t know of any evidence that things played out as Kadare describes A fast, but not easy, read, it would be rewarding to readers who are curious about Albania, life among the elite in a Communist dictatorship, or dystopias in general Kadare uses several narrators and a jumbled chronol Fascinati...Read this to help clear my desk Interesting Albanian thriller with a clever structure I wasn t that thrilled The writer looks like a sinister KGB Eric Morecambe. the successor follows a plot thread established in agamemnon s daughter and is based on the apparent real life suicide of albanian chairman mehmet shehu kadare s novel is a work of political intrigue and totalitarian excess framed as a murder mystery told from multiple perspectives, the story leaves the reader, until the conclusion, questioning whether the title character has indeed killed himself or has, in fact, been a victim of the repressive communist regime while both the plot and the pa the successor follows a plot thread established in agamemnon s daughter and is based on the apparent real life suicide o...Albanias succesor gets iced out and who is to blame At first it looks to be a suicide, but after further review someone murdered him.But who and why for Hmmmmmmmm Pretty good book, not great, but good, writing is clear and a bit like a journalistic entry, just the facts mam, the political fettering is entertaining and interesting.I will hold my judgment of Kadare for another book, at present I could take him or leave him, leaning cl...

The Successor
  • English
  • 06 June 2017
  • Hardcover
  • 207 pages
  • 1559707739
  • Ismail Kadare
  • The Successor