Three Elegies for Kosovo - Couverture souple

Ismail, Kadare

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 1860467075 ISBN 13 : 9781860467073

Editeur : The Harvill Press, 2000

Synopsis

On 28 June, 1389, a Christian army made up of Serbs, Bosnians, Albanians and Romanians was defeated by an Ottoman army. The battle was over in ten hours. But ever since, the birds of prey have been hovering above the battlefield to pick over the corpses. It was on 28 June, 1989, that the Serb Leader Slobodan Milosevic launched his campaign for a fresh massacre of the majority population of Kosovo, the Albanians. That was the day on which Yugoslavia began its process of implosion and post-War western Europe was first revisited by the barbarity of earlier epochs. The agony of one tiny population at the close of the 20th Century is the symptom of a sickness that European civilization has carried in its bloodstream for a thousand years.

A propos du livre

Revue de presse :

""The main goal of these three fables ... is to transmit a message about freedom, in the sense that to write truthfully is to set something free. In this book Kadare has set Kosovo, the battle, the myth, free from the chains of untruth"" (Julian Evans London Review of Books)

""The bridge is a foreboding, an omen, a threat. It is a bridge over which Asia will invade Europe and the future will invade the past. Kadare, an Albanian, has used the materials at hand to become one of Europe's great writers"" (Los Angeles Times)

""An utterly captivating yarn: strange, vivid, ominous, macabre and wise"" (New York Times)

"He has been compared to Gogol, Kafka and Orwell. But Kadare's is an original voice, universal yet rooted in his own soil." (Independent on Sunday)

Quatrième de couverture :

'Utterly captivating' New York Times

28 June 1389, the Field of the Blackbirds. A Christian army made up of Serbs, Bosnians, Albanians and Romanians confront an Ottoman army. In ten hours the battle is over, and the Muslims possess the field; an outcome that has haunted the vanquished ever since.

28 June 1989, the Serb Leader Slobodan Milosevic launches his campaign for a fresh massacre of the Albanians, the majority population of Kosovo.

In three short narratives Kadare shows how legends of betrayal and defeat simmered in European civilisation for six hundred years, culminating in the agony of one tiny population at the end of the twentieth century.

See also: The Palace of Dreams

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: The Harvill Press
• Date d'édition: 2000
• ISBN 10: 1860467075
• ISBN 13: 9781860467073
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 96