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324:, as each of the last two chapters is narrated by one of the novel's two most important characters: "The Architect" (who renovated the Successor's palace and was one of only few people who knew about its secret underground passage leading directly from the Guide's to the Successor's home), and in the "extraordinary chapter", "The Successor", the already deceased
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Silence had fallen all around, but when he managed to turn on the light and make it brighter, he laughed out loud. He turned the switch further, until the light was at maximum strength, then laughed again, ha-ha-ha, as if he’d just found a toy that pleased him. Everyone laughed with him, and the game
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are here recounted once again – this time through the eyes of the female protagonist, Suzana – as further evidence that even the most intimate feelings, such as love, may fall victim to political intrigues and the demands of the state, in cases when the individual is continually sacrificed at a more
532:"as something of a coded commentary on Kadare's own life. Just as we long to know the cause of the Successor's death, so do we long to resolve Kadare's true place in Hoxha's Albania. The archive may yet be discovered that helps Kadare's part become clearer. Will we ever know?"
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behind the death – announced, in a characteristically simple
Kadareian manner, in the novel's opening sentence ("The Designated Successor was found dead in his bedroom at dawn on December 14") – ostensibly closes to an inevitable resolution, the narration abruptly turns to
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a "strangely uplifting" novel, "despite the relentless tragedy it depicts, the tragedy of people yanked between fear and bewilderment. The final section, despite its sombreness, swings you up into the region where cruelty and pettiness are themselves left without air."
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Fundamentally echoing Landus' judgment, Simon
Caterson dispenses with this kind of black-and-white reasoning, writing that "even if Kadare was complicit in the Hoxha regime, and there is nothing in this remarkable novel to suggest he was not, it is quite possible that
280:. Official Albanian government sources called his death a suicide, but his denouncement as "multiple foreign agent" and "traitor to the motherland" and the ensuing prosecution of the entire Shehu clan (starting with his influential wife,
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winner in 2005, scathingly described the
Albanian author as "an astute chameleon, adroitly playing the rebel here and there to excite the naĂŻve Westerners who were scouting for voices of dissent from the East". In a reply to
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describes the diptych as "surely one of the most devastating accounts ever written of the mental and spiritual contamination wreaked on the individual by the totalitarian state". Wood compares Kadare favourably to both
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may have on everyone forced to live under it, no matter how safe he or she may seem in the eyes of the outward observers. Possibly analysing his own controversial dual role as both a privileged writer and an internal
354:, a rising political figure called Adrian Hasobeu striving to become the Number 2, the Architect who once felt offended by the Successor's jokes, or even the Successor's wife who slept much too soundly during the
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could not otherwise have been written. As it is, the book asks questions for which, to its credit, it can find no convenient answers." Leaving aside the nature of Kadare's political role, Murrough O'Brien calls
414:, "one of the finest and most accomplished of all Ismail Kadare's works to date". Characterizing it as "laceratingly direct" in its criticism of the totalitarian regime, in a longer overview of Kadare's works,
535:
Much like Lasdun's and albeit implicitly, Adams' review refers to a well-publicized denouncement of Kadare by the
Romanian émigré poet Renata Dumitrascu, who, in the wake of the announcement of the
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went on until he began to turn the dimmer down. As the brightness dwindled, little by little everything began to freeze, to go lifeless, until all the many lamps in the room went dark.
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refuted these allegations as "fabrications", pointing to the fact that the regime's file on Kadare has already been published and is readily available to the public.
307:
The novel is divided into seven chapters, the first four of which ("A Death in
December", "The Autopsy", "Fond Memories", and "The Fall") are narrated by
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fabulism" to depict a world bereaved of heroes, a universe where "everyone is stained, contaminated, implicated" – not excluding the author himself.
427:, considering him to be "a far deeper ironist than the first, and a better storyteller than the second". As an especially good example of Kadare's
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is much more grounded in actual history, presenting a fictional account of the events that may have led to the still-unexplained 1981 death of
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Durand, Claude (2006). "About
Agamemnon's Daughter: Adapted from the Publisher's Preface to the French Edition". In Kadare, Ismail (ed.).
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gradually moves away from speculating about the identity of the likely murderer – after juggling with the possibilities of him being a
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uses the figure of the
Architect to explore the problem of artistic integrity in such circumstances, and the events of
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Guide, led by his wife, visits the
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a "gripping, fitfully brilliant" novel, which employs everything "from documentary realism to
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204:. The diptych is ranked by many critics among the author's greatest works.
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at the time, the lavishness of which may be treated as a possible
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and "the reptilian consciousness" of dictators. Lasdun considers
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believes that the novel reaffirms Kadare's place "with Orwell,
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602:. Translated by Bellos, David. Arcade Publishing. pp.
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Even though branding the translation "clunky", a review by
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as representative of Kadare's power to chillingly portray
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both cites and questions this in a "lukewarm review" for
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as its companion-piece. As opposed to the more personal
785:"Chronicles And Fragments: The Novels of Ismail Kadare"
758:"Chronicles And Fragments: The Novels of Ismail Kadare"
431:, he points out to one of the concluding passages of
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598:Agamemnon's Daughter: A Novella and Stories
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468:from Tedi Papavrami's French translation,
231:, was written in 1985 and smuggled out of
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665:"'The Successor': A Bad Night in Albania"
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518:as a major chronicler of oppression".
183:by the Albanian writer and inaugural
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872:O'Brien, Murrough (8 January 2006).
663:Adams, Lorraine (13 November 2005).
816:"Ismail Kadare and 'The Successor'"
814:Bellos, David (27 November 2005).
14:
888:from the original on 20 June 2022
875:"The Successor, by Ismail Kadare"
756:Woods, James (20 December 2010).
727:"Ismail Kadare's 'The Successor'"
481:The same passage is excerpted by
694:Lasdun, James (7 January 2006).
630:Thomson, Ian (15 January 2006).
378:fundamental, systematic level.
195:of which the first part is the
544:, Kadare's English translator
537:Man Booker International Prize
185:International Man Booker Prize
1:
191:. It is the second part of a
1144:21st-century Albanian novels
1076:Spring Flowers, Spring Frost
980:Twilight of the Eastern Gods
948:The General of the Dead Army
844:"Kadare is no Solzhenitsyn"
235:before the collapse of the
16:2003 novel by Ismail Kadare
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1100:The Fall of the Stone City
322:first-person point of view
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852:Melville House Publishing
123:Published in English
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451:by the paranoid leader:
435:third chapter, when the
367:under the Hoxha regime,
262:long-time Prime Minister
1159:Novels by Ismail Kadare
996:The Three-Arched Bridge
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309:an omniscient narrator
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1169:Canongate Books books
1164:Novels set in Albania
696:"The tyrant's legacy"
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278:Soviet–Albanian split
1084:Agamemnon's Daughter
1028:The Palace of Dreams
842:Dimitrascu, Renata.
399:Agamemnon's Daughter
374:Agamemnon's Daughter
246:Agamemnon's Daughter
220:Agamemnon's Daughter
201:Agamemnon's Daughter
157:Agamemnon's Daughter
97:Shtëpia Botuese "55"
988:The Traitor's Niche
632:"Tyranny in Tirana"
572:Albanian literature
276:and the subsequent
49:Original title
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1044:The Blinding Order
964:Chronicle in Stone
821:The New York Times
670:The New York Times
525:The New York Times
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333:political thriller
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503:Publishers Weekly
474:Arcade Publishing
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483:James Lasdun
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1139:2003 novels
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1036:The Concert
881:Independent
732:The Monthly
340:tragicomedy
313:Enver Hoxha
293:Enver Hoxha
270:Enver Hoxha
264:during the
1133:Categories
578:References
495:Kafkaesque
476:2005, 113)
416:James Wood
410:'s editor
315:). As the
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208:Background
177:Pasardhësi
53:Pasardhësi
956:The Siege
934:Works by
382:Reception
365:dissident
259:Albania's
94:Publisher
1116:The Doll
1060:Spiritus
886:Archived
566:See also
459:—
348:Sigurimi
337:whodunit
297:Nexhmije
266:Cold War
173:Albanian
78:Albanian
74:Language
63:Magritte
892:25 July
857:25 July
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796:25 July
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707:25 July
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643:25 July
512:Kundera
445:Albania
425:Kundera
335:and a "
317:mystery
233:Albania
225:prequel
197:novella
193:diptych
187:winner
116:Albania
88:History
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604:ix–xii
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421:Orwell
408:Fayard
369:Kadare
356:murder
274:Stalin
223:, the
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67:Memory
39:Author
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429:irony
352:Hoxha
181:novel
132:Pages
84:Genre
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608:ISBN
514:and
487:fear
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