Artan P쳮aska
apernaska@tiranatimes.com
The Albanian writer Ismail Kadare is the 29th Winner of the Prince of Asturias Award for Letters, a prime literary award in the Hispanic literary world, and one of the consecrated international prizes. The decision was announced by the Jury at Oviedo, in Spain, on Wednesday, the 24th of June 2009.
Ismail Kadare was chosen among 31 candidates from 25 countries. Among them were paramount names of contemporary literature. Along with the eminent Albanian writer Ismail Kadare, notorious contemporary writers from Argentina, Belgium, Canada, Cuba, Czech Republic, Chile, France, Holland, Hungary, Iran, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Macedonia, Mexico, Nigeria, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Rumania, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay and Spain were selected for the prestigious award, that was created in 1981 and entered this year its 29th edition.
“The Jury of the Prince of Asturias Award for Letters 2009 Š[composed by renowned writers and cultural authorities of the Spanish-speaking literary universe] Šagrees to bestow the 2009 Prince of Asturias Award for Letters to the Albanian novelist, poet and essayist Ismail Kadare for the profound beauty and engagement of his literary creativity” – writes the decisions’ motivation note.
“Ismail Kadare narrates with a familiar language, but at the same time impregnated by lyric notes, the tragedy of the soil on which he was born, a continuous battlefield. Giving life to old myths by insufflating new expression, he articulates the complete aching and dramatic charge that conscience is subject to. His engagement takes root in the huge literary tradition of the Hellenic world, which he projects onto the contemporary scene as a denunciation of whatever form of totalitarism, in defense of reason” – pursues the Jury.
Few months ago Kadare’s The Siege translation by David Bellos was shortlisted for The Independent’s Foreign Fiction Prize. The Siege figured on the short list of six foreign books running for the prestigious prize which was recreated in 2001.
Ismail Kadare is regarded today as one of the greatest European writers and thinkers of the XXth century. Books and interviews of the author have thrown light on many problems concerning not only literature, but also the human condition, especially on the spirit of literature as a freedom-taking initiative against and systemic repression. Kadare’s books have been translated in over forty languages and published in numerous countries. In France, editor Fayard began edition of complete works of the Albanian author, born in the southern city of Gjirokast첬 on the 28th of January 1936. Living his boyhood in the beautiful stone city gripped to the mountain, he experienced there Italian and German occupation during the Second World War and communist victory on the liberation of the country. After completing high school in Gjirokast첬 he moved to pursue university studies to Tirana, capital of Albania, and then Moscow, capital of the Soviet Union where he studied at the Gorki Institute.
Born at a time where memories of the five hundred years’ Ottoman occupation were still livid in Albania, crossing in his own lifetime occupation or totaliarian asphyxiation of Albanian life, crossing in his own lifetime allegiances and break-offs with new era totalitarian empires such as with the crushing Soviet or Chinese communist powers, and breaking from them to recede to more asphyxiating isolation, the whole work of the Albanian author is a hymn to Albanian traditions and everyday spirit, to the legacy of antique literature with its dramatic richness which has never ceased to hassle human fates and to the spirit of freedom prevailing above all systemic pressure. The General of the Dead Army, The Siege (also translated as The Castle), Chronicle in Stone, Broken April, The Concert, The Great Winter, The Palace of Dreams are among the author’s best known creations.
Ismail Kadare is a member of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences of Paris, one of the five that make up the Institut de France, a member of the Berlin Academy of the Arts and Officer of the French Legion of Honour. In 2005 he received the International Booker Prize, paramount in the English-speaking literary world. 2005 was the inaugural year for the distinguished prize and the Albanian writer was the first to receive it. Ismail Kadare has been proclaimed Doctor “Honoris Causa” of many Albanian and foreign Universities, the last one being the University of Palermo, Italy, where on the 10th of June 2009 he received also the “Besa” prize, a new award designated by the over 500-years Albanian community living in the south of Italy. (Besa is an Albanian word meaning “the pledge of faith”). Ismail Kadare has constantly been a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Interviewed following the annunciation of the prize bestowal, the journalist of Vizion Plus, (newsreels of the 24th of June 2009), pointed to the fact that many winners of the Prince of Asturias Award for Letters have won the Nobel Prize in Literature in the following years. “It is true that this has happened on multiple times, and this may confirm, if you want, the importance of the Prince of Asturias Award for Letters and the and careful choice-making of the Jury, but it is not a condition at all” – replied Kadare, who was also asked if he was surprised to receive the Spanish prize.
“I have been shortlisted for the Prince of Asturias Award for Letters twice before” – replied Kadare who said not to have been surprised for the nomination since he knew he had been shortlisted, and since it was “normal to receive as it is normal not to receive any prize, including the Prince of Asturias Award for Letters or the Nobel Prize”. But he expressed himself moved to be pair with many authors he is fond of and in this, he said, every prize has its side of surprise.
Receiving comments that to receive such an honorary distinction, Kadare’s work must be well known in Spain and in Spanish-speaking countries and that his works had inspired film-making, the renowned author replied that his works had begun to translate in Spanish “since the seventies and that over the last decades he had an excellent translator in the person of Ramon Sanchez Lizaralde, who had been bestowed with prizes, recognitions and distinctions in the Spanish world way before I [Kadare] got the famous Prince of Asturias Award for Letters.”
Established since 1981, each of the Prince of Asturias Awards, comprises a diploma, a sculpture realized after model created by the illustrious Spanish painter and sculptor, Joan Mir
