TIRANA, Jan. 14 – Internationally renowned Albanian author Ismail Kadare has been awarded the Jerusalem Prize for his works which best express and promote the idea of the “freedom of the individual in society.”
“Kadare is an ironic and very interesting storyteller who excellently and subtly confesses about the collective blame especially the non-punishment of this blame. Even though his characters are mainly local, the understanding and importance are undoubtedly universal,” says the jury of the Jerusalem Prize, the cultural highlight of the Jerusalem International Book Fair.
Previous winners included Bertrand Russell, Arthur Miller, Haruki Murakami and Ian McEwan.
The Prize is awarded to a writer whose work best expresses and promotes the idea of the ”freedom of the individual in society.” The theme was chosen both for its wider international appeal and for its internal Israeli resonance. The modest monetary value of the Prize, currently US $10,000, reflects that it was never intended to be anything more than a symbolic sum.
The upcoming Jerusalem International Book Fair will take place February 8-12, 2015 at a new venue: ”The First Station” Jerusalem historic train station renovated into a central cultural hub. It is considered the country’s largest literary fair, held every two years and with 400 publishers from over 20 countries participating.
Kadare, known for writing about Albania’s totalitarian government, has works translated into over 30 languages. Only three of his books, “The Pyramid,” “The General of the Dead Army,” and “Ancient,” are available in Hebrew, reports the Times of Israel.
Albania is considered the only country in the world in which the number of Jews after the Second World War was larger than before the war.
An internationally renowned poet, novelist and essayist, Ismail Kadare has been perennial candidate for the Nobel Prize for literature. His international acclaim for his works peaked in 2005 when he won the Man Booker International Prize.
“Born in 1936 in the Albanian mountain town of Girokaster near the Greek border, Kadare is Albania’s best-known poet and novelist. He established an uneasy modus vivendi with the Communist authorities until their attempts to turn his reputation to their advantage drove him in October 1990 to seek asylum in France. Some of his novels include The General of the Dead Army, The Palace of Dreams, Albanian Spring and The File on H. ,” says the Man Booker about Kadare.
In 2009, Kadare won Spain’s Prince of Asturias literary Prize for being “a universal voice against totalitarianism.”
In September 2010, Kadare also won Italy’s “Lerici Pea” poetry prize in the competition’s 57th edition. Organizers said the prize was awarded to Kadare for his poems which have served as instrument of freedom to all people around the world who are denied fundamental freedoms.
In 2010, when Albania celebrated its 98th independence anniversary, Kadare also won the 12 edition of the Balkan literary prize (the Balkanika).
In late 2014, internationally renowned Albanian author Ismail Kadare was handed the special Jeronim De Rada award in this 17th edition of the Tirana Book Fair, the largest book event bringing together Albanian publishing houses. The perennial Albanian nominee for the Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded the special prize on the 200th birth anniversary of De Rada, who is not only the best known writer of Italian-Albanian literature but also the foremost figure of the Albanian nationalist movement in nineteenth-century Italy.
Several books written by Kadare have also been successfully turned into movies and plays.
