Advanced Search Request a Book

ORDERS

Readings Orders 0

DEMANDS

Readings Demands 0

A Dictator Calls: Longlisted For the International Booker Prize 2024
[Hardback - 2023]
ismail kadare
In Stock
List Price: £14.99
Our Price: Rs.3345 Rs.3010
Standard Discount: 10%
You Save: Rs.335
Category: Fiction
Sub-category: Literary Fiction
Publisher: Harvill Secker Uk | ISBN: 9781787303638 | Pages: 224
Shipping Weight: .308 | Dimensions: null

Description

Using a sophisticated and literary version of the ever-popular game of telephone to examine the relationship of writers with tyranny, Ismail Kadare reflects on three particular minutes in a long moment of time when the dark shadow of Joseph Stalin passed over the world
In June 1934, Stalin allegedly called Boris Pasternak and they spoke about the arrest of Osip Mandelstam. A telephone call from the dictator was not something necessarily relished, and in the complicated world of literary politics it would have provided opportunities for potential misunderstanding and profound trouble. But this was a call one could not ignore. Stalin wanted to know what Pasternak thought of the idea that Mandelstam had been arrested.

Ismail Kadare explores the afterlife of this phone call using accounts of witnesses, reporters, writers such as Isaiah Berlin and Anna Akhmatova, wives, mistresses, biographers, and even archivists of the KGB. The results offer a meditation on power and political structure, and how literature and authoritarianism construct themselves in plain sight of one another. Kadare s reconstruction becomes a gripping mystery, as if true crime is being presented in mosaic.

A little time ago the poet Mandelstam was arrested. What have you to say to that, Comrade Pasternak?

About the Author

ISMAIL KADARE is Albania s best-known novelist and poet. Translations of his novels have appeared in more than forty countries. He was awarded the inaugural Man Booker International Prize in 2005, the Jerusalem Prize in 2015, and the Neustadt International Prize for Literature in 2020.
JOHN HODGSON studied at Cambridge and Newcastle and has taught at the universities of Prishtina and Tirana. This is the seventh book by Ismail Kadare that he has translated.

Also by the Same Author

View All
Broken April (Translation)
[Paperback - 2003]
ismail kadare
In Stock
List Price: £9.99
Our Price: Rs.2095 Rs.1885
Standard Discount: 10%
You Save: Rs.210
The File On H (Translation)
[Paperback - 2006]
ismail kadare
In Stock
List Price: £9.99
Our Price: Rs.1745 Rs.1570
Standard Discount: 10%
You Save: Rs.175
The Palace Of Dreams
[Paperback - 2008]
ismail kadare
In Stock
List Price: £9.99
Our Price: Rs.2195 Rs.1975
Standard Discount: 10%
You Save: Rs.220
The General Of The Dead Army (Translation)
[Paperback - 2008]
ismail kadare
In Stock
List Price: £9.99
Our Price: Rs.2145 Rs.1930
Standard Discount: 10%
You Save: Rs.215
Three Elegies For Kosovo
[Paperback - 2011]
ismail kadare
In Stock
List Price: £8.99
Our Price: Rs.1395 Rs.1255
Standard Discount: 10%
You Save: Rs.140
Essays On World Literature: Aeschylus-Dante-Shakespeare
[Paperback - 2018]
ismail kadare
Out of Stock
Availability in 4-6 weeks on receipt of order
List Price: $19.99
Our Price: Rs.4695 Rs.4225
Standard Discount: 10%
You Save: Rs.470
Spring Flowers, Spring Frost (Transaltion)
[Paperback - 2003]
ismail kadare
On Demand
Availability in 2-4 weeks on receipt of order
List Price: £9.99
Our Price: Rs.2095 Rs.1781
Standard Discount: 15%
You Save: Rs.314
A Girl In Exile (Translation)
[Paperback - 2017]
ismail kadare
On Demand
Availability in 2-4 weeks on receipt of order
List Price: £9.99
Our Price: Rs.1595 Rs.1435
Standard Discount: 10%
You Save: Rs.160
Twilight Of The Eastern Gods
[Paperback - 2015]
ismail kadare
On Demand
Availability in 2-4 weeks on receipt of order
List Price: £9.99
Our Price: Rs.2095 Rs.1781
Standard Discount: 15%
You Save: Rs.314
The Traitor's Niche
[Paperback - 2019]
ismail kadare
On Demand
Availability in 2-4 weeks on receipt of order
List Price: £9.99
Our Price: Rs.2095 Rs.1781
Standard Discount: 15%
You Save: Rs.314
The Doll
[Hardback - 2020]
ismail kadare
On Demand
Availability in 2-4 weeks on receipt of order
List Price: £12.99
Our Price: Rs.2345 Rs.1993
Standard Discount: 15%
You Save: Rs.352
The Pyramid (Vintage Classics)
[Paperback - 2013]
ismail kadare
On Demand
Availability in 2-4 weeks on receipt of order
List Price: £9.99
Our Price: Rs.2045 Rs.1738
Standard Discount: 15%
You Save: Rs.307

Bestsellers in Fiction

View All
Before The Coffee Gets Cold: Before The Coffee Gets Cold (Book 1)
[Paperback - 2019]
toshikazu kawaguchi
In Stock
List Price: £10.99
Our Price: Rs.2295 Rs.2065
Standard Discount: 10%
You Save: Rs.230
A Little Life: Tiktok Made Me Buy It!
[Paperback - 2016]
hanya yanagihara
In Stock
List Price: £10.99
Our Price: Rs.2395 Rs.2155
Standard Discount: 10%
You Save: Rs.240
The Seven Husbands Of Evelyn Hugo: Tiktok Made Me Buy It!
[Paperback - 2021]
taylor jenkins reid
In Stock
List Price: £8.99
Our Price: Rs.2395 Rs.2155
Standard Discount: 10%
You Save: Rs.240
The Secret History: Tiktok Made Me Buy It!
[Paperback - 1993]
donna tartt
In Stock
List Price: £9.99
Our Price: Rs.2195 Rs.1975
Standard Discount: 10%
You Save: Rs.220
Book Lovers: Tiktok Made Me Buy It!
[Paperback - 2022]
emily henry
In Stock
List Price: £8.99
Our Price: Rs.2195 Rs.1975
Standard Discount: 10%
You Save: Rs.220
The Atlas Six: The Atlas Six Series (Book 1) Tiktok Made Me Buy It!
[Paperback - 2022]
olivie blake
In Stock
List Price: £9.99
Our Price: Rs.2395 Rs.2155
Standard Discount: 10%
You Save: Rs.240
Twisted Games: Twisted Love (Book 2) (Tiktok Made Me Buy It!)
[Paperback - 2022]
ana huang
In Stock
List Price: £9.99
Our Price: Rs.2295 Rs.2065
Standard Discount: 10%
You Save: Rs.230
It Ends With Us: It Ends With Us (Book 1) (Tiktok Made Me Buy It!)
[Paperback - 2016]
colleen hoover
In Stock
List Price: £9.99
Our Price: Rs.2595 Rs.2335
Standard Discount: 10%
You Save: Rs.260
Twisted Love: Twisted Love (Book 1) (Tiktok Made Me Buy It!)
[Paperback - 2022]
ana huang
In Stock
List Price: £9.99
Our Price: Rs.2195 Rs.1975
Standard Discount: 10%
You Save: Rs.220
King Of Wrath: Kings Of Sin (Book 1)
[Paperback - 2022]
ana huang
In Stock
List Price: £9.99
Our Price: Rs.2245 Rs.2020
Standard Discount: 10%
You Save: Rs.225
Final Offer: Dreamland Billionaires (Book 3) (Tiktok Made Me Buy It!)
[Paperback - 2023]
lauren asher
In Stock
List Price: £9.99
Our Price: Rs.2395 Rs.2155
Standard Discount: 10%
You Save: Rs.240
Icebreaker: The Maple Hills Series (Book 1) (Tiktok Made Me Buy It!)
[Paperback - 2023]
hannah grace
In Stock
List Price: £8.99
Our Price: Rs.2395 Rs.2155
Standard Discount: 10%
You Save: Rs.240