The Three-Arched Bridge

His ability to spin eerie parables out of a little-known national history makes his books an addictive pleasure

Jonathan Romney, Independent on Sunday

[Kadare] is seemingly incapable of writing a book that fails to be interesting

New York Times

Little in the modern canon is more locally remote from us than the writing of the Albanian novelist Ismail Kadare, and not much is more universal in its reach… Kadare, who lived under the dictator Enver Hoxha until moving to France, is a supreme fictional interpreter of the psychology and physiognomy of oppression

New York Times

In Ismail Kadare's fictional worlds creation and destruction are entwined, and how he illuminates the human cost of their varied pairings is the source of his greatness as a writer

Chicago Tribune

A prolific and stylistically versatile author who has sought to explain his problematic country through massive political epics as well as in novellas that variously take shape as allegories, folk tales, magical autobiography or ancient Albanian history

Independent

A vivid, macabre and wise novel

New York Times

A compelling investigation into language and myth, politics and power, by the renowned, infinitely talented Albanian novelist

Booklist

Kadare and Andric share a sense of incisive imagery, all too relevant, in which a Balkan bridge links present and future, at the sacrifice of humanity

Boston Globe