Albanian writer critical of censorship, Nobel laureate
Ismail Kadare, an Albanian writer based in France and the winner of the 2019 Pak Kyong-ni Prize, said Wednesday he was honored to be chosen for the literary award in Korea.
“I am very happy to accept this award. I am from Albania which is a country far from Korea, so receiving the award has grabbed much attention from the Albanian public too,” Kadare said during a news conference at the Press Center in Seoul.
Kadare escaped from Albania in 1992, years after his country was torn apart following the communist regimes, seeking asylum in France. His asylum was later granted. Since his literary debut, he has produced plenty of satirical works.
He shared his insight into the latest developments of his home country. Although communism fell in the early 1990s in the wake of students-led protests, the writer said the fact that one is free doesn’t necessarily mean that one has gained existential freedom.
“Of course having no freedom is an obstruction to the individual freedom, but it is not always true,” Kadare said.
Political instability has continued in Albania this year since opposition organized anti-government protests.
In Albania, Kadare said there are still hindrances that keep people from being free. He shared the story of his sufferings in Albania.
“Most of the writers were censored by the government then. In the Constitution it stated that one cannot express their opinions if they are against the regime. Many of the writers were in dangerous situations and some went to jail for that. My life is just one of the thousand cases,” he said.
Asked why he uses satire and myths in his novels, he said it is just a literary device used by many writers.
“Satire is taken not only by Albanian writers but all the fellow novelists,” he said. “It is a method that we ended up with after resisting to the suppression of the government for a long time.”
Similarly he said using myths into the novel goes up to centuries in history of all the countries.
Kadare is famous for his work mixing history with hint of imagination. Using history as background for his works made him a target from the government when he lived in Albania.
However, he kept writing and sent his pieces to France to publish his works and enlighten the other European countries about the situation in Albania.
For the controversy of Peter Handke, an Austrian Nobel laureate, for his connection with Slobodan Milosevic, Kadare said he concurs with many other critics. Handke gave a eulogy at Milosevic’s funeral. “I personally know Handke and had meals with him several times too. I think there is a line that literature should not cross but Handke did. Homicide should not be accepted under any circumstances,” he said.
Although a friend, Kadare said he is against the Swedish Academy’s decision to award Handke, noting he is a victim of government censorship and repression, so this might have caused him to be sensitive to the issue.