Le Monde recalls Kadare's words: They tell me I was honest with dictators, but should you be honest with bandits and wild animals?

He was one of the few well-known and widely translated Albanian authors worldwide. He died Monday in Tirana.

It was the first novel by Ismail Kadare, the late army general published in Albania in 1963 that brought fame, immediately making one of the few internationally recognised Albanian writers. Translated into over 45 languages and winner of the most prestigious literary awards (Man Booker, Prince of Asturias, Jerusalem Price), Kadare died in Tirana on Monday, July 1st, at the age of 88, writes the renowned French newspaper Le Monde.

He was born on January 28, 1936, in Gjirokastra, a town located 200 miles [200 km] from Tirana, in the mountainous south of Albania. Listed as a World Heritage Site NESTO he was known under the Byzantine Empire as Argyrópolis, “Silver City” This historic city played an important role in its work. Kadare described it in his 1971 novel “Kronic on stone” and in his great autobiographical work in 2015, “Kukla”. In his life as in his stories, Kadare always returned to Gjirokastra, the most steep city in Europe”.

Le Monde recalls Kadare's words in an interview for this newspaper in 2001, where he did not hide his fatigue in always avoiding doubts about her when asked about Albania and the time of communism. I hate to spend so much energy talking about it. Basically, what people ask me is how I got out of the system alive. But you can be shot for the smaller things, so why would I sacrifice myself? Those who bark say to me: You weren't honest with dictators. But is it necessary to be honest with bandits and wild animals?

His sincerity, he said, was exercised in his art. In fact, his literature was with him early in life. At the age of 9, when communism spread to his country, he was already “obsessed with the idea of finding the meaning of the words”. At the age of 12, he wrote his first verses.