Title: The General of the Dead Army
Author: Ismail Kadare
Original language: Albanian
Translation(s): 37 languages
Context: The General of the Dead Army (2003) is a translated novel by Ismail Kadare. This is one of the most critically acclaimed novels of the author. The story is about an Italian general with a chaplain accompanying him. He is charged with an expedition of scouring Albania where he looks for bones of their deprived people of the country whose lives were taken 2 decades earlier during World War II.
Synopsis: Around 2 decades of the World War II, during the early 1960, an Italian general accompanied by an Italian army colonel who is also a priest, are ordered to go to Albania. The army colonel has to identify and gather the bones of his countrymen who lost their lives during the war. After this he has to return back to Italy and bury them. Accordingly both of them reach Albania and begin organizing disinterment and digs at the same time pondering over the vastness of this task.
The priest and army colonel discuss about how meaningless the endeavor had been and how futile the war had proved to be. As they delve deeper into the countryside area of Albania they discover that another general is following them and is looking for bodies of dead German soldiers who lost their lives in World War II. Just like his Italian counterpart he struggles with the task of looking for bodies to be taken for burial back home. He too has questions regarding the importance of such actions related to national pride.
Other works by the Author:
Novels and Novellas
1965 – The Monster
1967 – The Wedding
1970 – The Siege
1971 – Chronicle in Stone
1972 – The Great Winter
1975 – November of a Capital
1978 – Twilight of the Eastern Gods
1978 – The Three-arched Bridge
1978 – The Traitor’s Niche
1980 – Broken April
1980 – The Ghost Rider
1981 – The Palace of Dreams
1985 – A Moonlit Night
1985 – The Dark Year
1985 – The Wedding Procession Turned to Ice
1988 – The Concert
1989 – The File on H.
1991 – The Blinding Order
1992 – The Pyramid
1994 – The Shadow
1995 – The Eagle
1996 – Spiritus
1959 – The City with no Signs
2000 – Spring Flowers, Spring Frost
2003 – Agamemnon’s Daughter
2003 – The Successor
2003 – Life, Game and Death of Lul Mazrek
2005 – A Question of Lunacy
2008 – The Fall of the Stone City
2009 – A Girl in Exile
2010 – The Accident
2014 – Tirana’s Mists
2015 –The Doll
Plays
1998 – Dull Season in Olympus
Screenplays
2009 – Frightened Gazelles