Ismail Kadare Critical Essay | Critical Review by Matthew L. McAlpin

Critical Review by Matthew L. McAlpin

SOURCE: McAlpin, Matthew L. Review of Spring Flowers, Spring Frost, by Ismail Kadare. Review of Contemporary Fiction 23, no. 1 (spring 2003): 156.

In the following review, McAlpin notes Kadare's portrayal of post-communist Albania in Spring Flowers, Spring Frost, calling the novel “bizarrely touching.”

In Ismail Kadare's latest novel [Spring Flowers, Spring Frost], Albania awakes from the isolation and terror it experienced under communist dictatorship. But this awakening is bittersweet. With all of the benefits of joining the modern European order come unforeseen problems: taxes, bank robberies, and the rebirth of the kanun, an ancient system of blood-debt and revenge that perpetuates an endless cycle of violence. Within this Albania we follow Mark Gurabardhi, a painter and minor governmental functionary, as he ponders the mysteries in his own life: his missing friend Zeb, the murder of his boss, the visit of his girlfriend's mysterious uncle and her subsequent disappearance, and...
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