Shortlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2013.

In September 1943, Nazi troops advance on the ancient gates of Gjirokastër, Albania. The very next day, the Germans vanish without a trace. As the townsfolk wonder if they might have dreamt the events of the previous night, rumours circulate of a childhood friendship between a local dignitary and the invading Nazi Colonel, a reunion in the town square and a fateful dinner party that would transform twentieth-century Europe.

A captivating novel of resistance in a dictatorship, and steeped in Albanian folklore, The Fall of the Stone City shows Kadare at the height of his powers.

Prizes

Short-listed for Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2013 (UK)

One of the most important voices in literature today * * Metro * *
A master storyteller -- John Carey
One of the world's greatest living writers -- Simon Sebag Montefiore
There are very few writers alive today with the depth, power and resonance of this remarkable novelist * * Herald * *
His fiction offers invaluable insights into life under tyranny - his historical allegories point both to the grand themes and small details that make up life in a restrictive environment. He is a great writer, by any nation's standards * * Financial Times * *
One of the great writers of our time * * Scotsman * *
Ismail Kadare has sometimes been compared with Kafka, and you can see why * * Scottish Mail on Sunday * *
There are books which seem less the second-time round; Kadare's seem more . . . one can relish his mastery of tone and the tireless probing intelligence of narrative -- Allan Massie * * The Scotsman * *
Both in his deployment of material and in his vision of life, Kadare is the equal of the often invoked Kafka * * Literary Review * *
Ismail Kadare is a great writer, by any nation's standards * * Financial Times * *

Born in 1936, Ismail Kadare was Albania's best-known poet and novelist. Translations of his novels have appeared in more than forty countries. In 2005, he won the inaugural Man Booker International Prize for 'a body of work written by an author who has had a truly global impact'. He is the recipient of the highly prestigious 2009 Principe de Asturias de las Letras in Spain. He died in 2024, aged 88.