A Girl in Exile — Ismail Kadare

A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice

“Erotic, paranoiac and lightly fantastical.” -- The Wall Street Journal

“Ismail Kadare's readers are astonished every year when the Nobel committee overlooks him. . . . A Girl in Exile, published in Albanian in 2009, may rekindle the worldwide hopes.” -- The New York Times Book Review

During the bureaucratic machinery of Albania's 1945�"1991 dictatorship, playwright Rudian Stefa is called in for questioning by the Party Committee. A girl -- Linda B. -- has been found dead, with a signed copy of his latest book in her possession.

He soon learns that Linda's family, considered suspect, was exiled to a small town far from the capital. Under the influence of a paranoid regime, Rudian finds himself swept along on a surreal quest to discover what really happened to Linda B.

“At a time when parts of the world are indulging nostalgia for communism, Kadare's novel confronts the infuriating impossibility of art in an autocratic, anti�"individualist system.” -- The Washington Post

“A Girl in Exile confirms Kadare to be the best writer at work today who remembers -- almost aggressively so, refusing to forget -- European totalitarianism.” -- The New Republic