The Succesor

September 19, 2005
In 1981, on a December night, the designated successor to Albania's tyrannical "Guide" died of a gunshot wound; the Albanian news reported it as a suicide, but rumors spoke of murder. The search for the story of that night spirals inward from the speculations of foreign intelligence analysts to the posthumous and fragmentary recollections of the successor himself. Through those, we see his daughter twice forced to abandon love that conflicted with her father's ambitions, and his son clapped in irons when doctrine required it. As Kadare explores the perspectives of those caught in the successor's orbit, past and present, it becomes apparent that he is investigating not only the fate of a man, but the nature of truth when the symbol one becomes outweighs the human one is. Kadare (Broken April
) was awarded this year's Man Booker International Prize, given for a body of work rather than a single book; Arcade will re-release six other Kadare novels simultaneously with this one. The successor is based on Mehmet Shehu, destined to take over for dictator Enver Hoxha, and Kadare infuses his character with magical realist horror. Even in this clunky translation (from the French, as opposed to the original Albanian), Kadare stands with Orwell, Kafka, Kundera and Solzhenitsyn as a major chronicler of oppression.