Before “Qyteti pa Reklama”, “Kronike ne Gur”, “Gjenerali i Ushtrise se
Vdekur”, “Dimri i Vetmise se Madhe”, the very first book of Ismail
Kadare is the one called “Mjegullat e Tiranes”, “Mists of Tirana”.
Right when the great Albanian writer had declared that he would write no more artistic literature, there comes a novel that the writer had always kept in the dark.
The novel is written around 1957-1958, when Kadare was 20. It starts with his student diary and it is accompanies by the interview he gave to Viola Isufaj, who has made a detailed study of the book.
“It is more of a challenge to write a novel than a proper novel. It will not be a literary work with its own life, like all other novels. This is a text with more of a documentary value, which is a great asset for scholars and for my study”, declared Dr.Viola Isufaj, professor at the University of Tirana.
Kadare says that “Mjegullat e Tiranes” is not a proper work, but a first effort to write a novel. Different from the other texts, the author has not wanted to make any change in its content.
Firstly titled “Love no.2”, the “Mists of Tirana” goes against romantic love through two characters, Ema and Bardhyl, and brings an atmosphere of the Albanian capital in the 50s, a time when the Albanian literary was seeing its darkest days.
Maybe this is the reason why “Mists of Tirana” has been ignored and turned into a ridicule that Kadare makes to the imposed art of the socialist realism, with very intimate scenes, very unusual for the time.
“This is a very nice and beautiful literary text. It has one love line. I focused on the power of Kadare’s creation, always seen as a potential. This text has been seen as the magma of his creation”, Viola Isufaj declared.
“Mists of Tirana” is not the only work of Kadare that has not been published. On of the manuscripts that has not been published is a novel titled “The Boat in the Sand”.
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