- Paperback: 224 pages
- Publisher: The Harvill Press; New edition edition (6 Aug 1998)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 186046503X
- ISBN-13: 978-1860465031
- Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.8 x 1.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 479,621 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Broken April
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More About the Author
Product Description
Review
Ismail Kadare's fiction has been compared with that of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Certainly he induces that same ironic double-take in his readers, by means of the child's magical view of life that is larger than most adults realize--Leonie Caldecott "New York Times "
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Book Description
'By any standard this is a considerable novel' Sunday Telegraph
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
edition.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
15 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This novel is set in the author's native Albania, in its bleak and fierce High Plateau. In the early 20th century the writ of central government does not run up there, and the mountain communities live by their own centuries-old law, the Kanun, which regulates every aspect of their lives. In particular, this code regulates and indeed insists upon blood-feuds. Every killing must be avenged, and that includes the killing of the avenger. Once an extended family is drawn into such a feud, therefore, honour demands that there is effectively no end to it. A killer is safe only during the bessa, the period of one month following a killing. When the bessa has expired, he is doomed. He even has to wear a black ribbon on his sleeve to show the rest of the world that his life is forfeit. Only by immuring himself for the rest of his life in one of the dark towers (or kullas) dotted over the landscape, could he escape. The novel begins with the story of Gjorg, who has been forced to avenge his brother's death, and who now cannot expect to live through the whole of the month of April.
Into this world intrudes a newly-married couple from the city, Bessian and Diana. Bessian has written extensively about the Kanun, and his idea of a honeymoon is to take his young wife to the High Plateau to show her something of the life that has obsessed him for so long.
It seems to me that Bessian and Diana represent two sides of the author himself. Bessian is fascinated by the majestic primitivity of the mountain people; he finds a rationale in the blood-feud enjoined by the Kanun, and, because so many people are involved with it, he sees fatalist acceptance frequent early and sudden deaths giving a kind of intensity to life. In some of his other powerful novels (The File on H, The Three-Arched Bridge, The General of the Dead Army), Kadare shows a similar Romantic fascination with a society of Noble Savages - savage, it need hardly be said, in a violent sense that is a million miles away from their peaceful Rousseauesque prototypes! Only the laws of hospitality redeem this society somewhat, though even here the Kanun seems positively to glory in its extremism and irrationality. Then, in Diana, Kadare shows, I suspect, the other side of his personality: perhaps some sense of guilt about this very fascination. In his treatment of Diana, Kadare is still a Romantic: she cannot or will not find the words with which to confront her husband's obsession. But her muteness conveys better (and more artistically) her sense of horror than any more articulate and rational exposition of it could do.
The whole book is a work of artistry: the chilling, rain-soaked and largely featureless uplands, the dour mountain folk who inhabit them, the intricacy and implacability of the Kanun are all brilliantly described.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
A dark thriller set in Albania's Northern Plateau in the inter-war years. Gjorg finds, despite himself, that he is trapped in a blood feud which has consumed the lives of so many of his family for several generations. His path crosses with that of a rich playboy couple from Tirana, whose honeymoon in the mountains ends up being more adventurous than they bargained for.
I couldn't put this book down. It is not exactly light reading - in fact it's bloody depressing - but it's plot doesn't let you go and confirms Kadare's position as a master.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Set in Albania in the 1930s when blood feuding functioned as the only effective system of government. This is a tragedy of classic Greek dimension, a sociological essay, a modernist novel of hysteria, an existentialist myth, all combined. Kadare is a novelist of world status.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Magnificent
Truly wonderful book by Ismail Kadare. I had never heard of the author prior to buying this book purely on impulse and it is simply one of the best books I have ever read. Read more
Published 15 months ago by MartyMac
great book
Being from the region the book is set in, i must say it does capture a certain reality that still exists there. Read more
Published 16 months ago by somerandomdude
Broken April
This book was a selection by our Round the World Book Group. It was an excellent choice, and was the first to give me a real feeling of being introduced to a completely unknown... Read more
Published 18 months ago by Mr. A. Mcinnes
Broken April
Having recently made a very brief visit to Albania, I met a delightful local guide who recommended this book, one which I never might have chosen to read. Read more
Published 19 months ago by Mrs. P. A. Oddy
One of the Best Books I've Ever Read
This book makes a superb introduction to one of the twentieth century's greatest authors. Unsettling, but easy to read and never less than gripping. Read more
Published on 17 July 2009 by Sir Norbert Stiles
A Snapshot of Albanian Culture
Kadare is known in Albanian and Kosovo circles as a beautiful writer, probably the most important writing in Albanian. Read more
Published on 1 July 2009 by Matthew Brown
Murder by law
Kadare's `BA' is a novel that skilfully contrasts the attitudes of its different characters to acts of violence. Read more
Published on 21 Jun 2006 by Depressaholic
An atmospheric journey in the land of the bloodfeud. Albania
Ismail Kadare is a Southern Albanian, and in Broken April his Alter Ego journeys into Northern Albania with his newly-wed for a testing honeymoon among the Ghegs who still live by... Read more
Published on 18 Feb 2000
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