Sur des rives opposées : Ivo Andrić et Ismaïl Kadaré
On Opposite Shores: Ivo Andrić and Ismaïl Kadaré

Summary/Abstract: Ismaïl Kadaré, when he began "The Three Arches Bridge" in 1976, was in a difficult situation. The protests of the Albanian Communist Party against the novel "The Winter of Great Solitude", narrating the break between Albania and the Soviet Union, were such as to prevent any translation of the book. The author, furious, had the imprudence to propose to publication a macabre poem, "The Red Pachas", which vilified the bureaucracy. The text was labeled a "sinister counterrevolutionary tract". After two weeks of anguish, the writer was summoned by emissaries of the Central Committee to examine his "self-criticism", a rite necessary to obtain pardon. He claimed that he had no intention of harming the regime and argued his fame abroad had made him lose all measure. When the censors asked the author himself which punishment he deserved, he declared that it would be profitable for him to live for some time in contact with the people in Central Albania. He was sent there at the end of 1975, and received firm advice to stop writing.

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