A Girl in Exile

A New York Times Book Review Editors‘ Choice "Erotic, paranoiac and lightly fantastical." -The Wall Street Journal "Ismail Kadare‘s readers are astonished every year when the Nobel committee overlooks him. . . . A Girl in Exile, published in Albanian in 2009, may rekindle the worldwide hopes." -The New York Times Book Review During the bureaucratic machinery of Albania‘s 1945-1991 dictatorship, playwright Rudian Stefa is called in for questioning by the Party Committee. A girl-Linda B.-has been found dead, with a signed copy of his latest book in her possession. He soon learns that Linda‘s family, considered suspect, was exiled to a small town far from the capital. Under the influence of a paranoid regime, Rudian finds himself swept along on a surreal quest to discover what really happened to Linda B. "At a time when parts of the world are indulging nostalgia for communism, Kadare‘s novel confronts the infuriating impossibility of art in an autocratic, anti-individualist system." -The Washington Post "A Girl in Exile confirms Kadare to be the best writer at work today who remembers-almost aggressively so, refusing to forget-European totalitarianism." -The New Republic