Renowned Albanian novelist Ismail Kadare passed away at the age of 88 on Monday after being rushed to a hospital in Tirana, according to his publishing editor Bujar Hudhri. Kadare had long been considered a possible contender for the Nobel Literature Prize.
Albanian President Bajram Begaj expressed his condolences, saying that Albania lost a genius of letters and a spiritual emancipator, while the Balkans lost a poet of its myths and the world lost one of the most renowned representatives of modern literature.
Kadare gained international recognition with the publication of his novel “The General of the Dead Army” in 1963, during a time when Albania was still under communist rule. However, he left Albania in 1990 and moved to France before returning last year. He received numerous international awards throughout his career for his extensive body of work, which included over 80 novels, plays, screenplays, poetry, essays, and story collections translated into 45 languages.