Ismail Kadare has 3 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 3 narrators, with an average listener rating of 4.5★ across 3 ratings. The most-rated is Chronicle in Stone.
Chronicle in Stone
Summary
Masterful in its simplicity, Chronicle in Stone is a touching coming-of-age story and a testament to the perseverance of the human spirit. Surrounded by the magic of beautiful women and literature, a boy must endure the deprivations of war as he suffers the hardships of growing up. His sleepy country has just thrown off centuries of tyranny, but new waves of domination inundate his city. Through the boy's eyes, we see the terrors of World War II as he witnesses fascist invasions, allied bombings, partisan infighting, and the many faces of human cruelty - as well as the simple pleasures of life. Evacuating to the countryside, he expects to find an ideal world full of extraordinary things, but discovers instead an archaic backwater where a severed arm becomes a talisman and deflowered girls mysteriously vanish. Woven between the chapters of the boy's story are tantalizing fragments of the city's history. As the devastation mounts, the fragments lose coherence, and we perceive firsthand how the violence of war destroys more than just buildings and bridges.
©1971, 2011 Ismail Kadare English-language translation copyright 1987, 2011 by Arshi Pipa Editing and introduction copyright 2007, 2011 by David Bellos (P)2014 Audible Inc.
The Successor
Summary
A new novel from the acclaimed winner of the inaugural Man Booker International Prize for achievement in fiction. The Successor is a powerful political novel based on the sudden, mysterious death of the man who had been handpicked to succeed the hated Albanian dictator Enver Hoxha. The man who died was Mehmet Shehu, the presumed heir to the ailing dictator. The world was so certain that he was next in line that he was known as The Successor. And then, shortly before he was to assume power, he was found dead. Did he commit suicide or was he murdered? The Successor is simultaneously a page-turning mystery, a historical novel - based on actual events and buttressed by the author’s private conversations with the son of the real-life Mehmet Shehu - and a psychological challenge to the reader to decide, How does one live when nothing is sure? The Successor seamlessly blends dream and reality, legendary past, and contemporary history, and proves again that Kadare stands alongside Mrquez, Canetti, and Auster.
©2003, 2013 Ismail Kadare. English-language translation © 2005 by David Bellos (P)2013 Audible, Inc.
Spring Flowers, Spring Frost
Summary
In a town at the foot of the northern Highlands, life goes on as always, but people are in a state of shock: A bank has been robbed, a sure sign of the Westernization of this backward Balkan land. Meanwhile, other strange events - such as the marriage of a girl and a snake - confirm that ancient legends still prevail. People are flocking from far and wide to search for a tunnel to the Secret State Archives, said to house records of crimes they may have committed. Some even claim the ghosts of former dictators Hoxha, Brezhnev, and Ulbricht - not to mention Oedipus - have been seen there.... Against this backdrop, a simple and sensual love story between a painter and a girl stands out as light against dark.
©2000, 2011 Librairie Artheme Fayard. English translation copyright 2002, 2011 by David Bellos (P)2014 Audible, Inc.