Agamemnon's Daughter: A Novella and Stories (Myths) - Tapa dura

Suffused with the power of thought and feeling . . . Above all, Kadare creates a haunting sense of the absurd * * Sunday Times * * Kadare brilliantly recreates the atmosphere of shadowy fear, rumours and recrimination in Albania . . . a mesmerically readable parable about the abuse of state power * * Observer * * Dream and reality melt together, as in Kafka, making it difficult to identify where the nightmares really begin. * * Times * *

In his compelling prequel to The Successor, Kadare draws us into a land deprived of choice, a country under a reign of terror. The spellbinding Agamemnon's Daughter was written in Albania in the 1980s and smuggled into France a few pages at a time. It reveals a world where fear is an instrument of power, but the individual survives despite the odds. From the winner of the first Man Booker International Prize comes a searing story of love denied, then shattered under the chilling wheels of the state. Through the impeccably crafted, incisive tale of a thwarted lover's odyssey through a single day, we are given a true sense of how hard it can be to remain human in a world ruled by fear and suspicion.