Paul Binding
Balkan Battle
The Siege
By Ismail Kadare (Translated from the French of Jusuf Vriony by David Bellos)
Canongate 322pp £16.99 order from our bookshop
The Pasha commanding this novel’s eponymous siege of an Albanian citadel experiences, at the start of operations, nostalgia for his own Anatolia with its ‘peaceful plains’:
He had thought of it most when his army had entered the land of the Shqipetars (Albanians) and first seen its fearsome peaks … He’d never seen any like them before. They reminded him of ghastly nightmares unrelieved by waking up. The ground and the rocks seemed to be scrambling madly towards the sky in mockery of the laws of nature. Allah must have been very angry when he created this land.
The waking nightmare that follows, with its unsurpassable savagery and countless deaths, is of course the work of the Pasha and his government. But, as elsewhere in Ismail Kadare’s work, The Siege repeatedly puts forward the idea that the very terrain of its author’s native Albania is inimical to the
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
'It is the ... sketches of the local and the overlooked that lend this book its density and drive, and emphasise Britain’s mostly low-key riches – if only you can be bothered to buy an anorak and seek.'
Jonathan Meades on the beauty of brutalism.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/castles-of-concrete
'Cruickshank’s history reveals an extraordinary eclecticism of architectural styles and buildings, from Dutch Revivalism to Arts and Crafts experimentation, from Georgian terraces to Victorian mansion blocks.'
William Boyd on the architecture of Chelsea.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/where-george-eliot-meets-mick-jagger
'The eight years he has spent in solitary confinement have had a devastating impact on his mental health ... human rights organisations believe his detention is punishment for his critical views.'
@lucyjpop on the Egyptian activist and poet Ahmed Douma.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/ahmed-douma