Editions

The File on H

  • Imprint: Vintage Classics

  • ISBN: 9780099497196

  • Length: 176  Pages

  • Dimensions: 198mm x 12mm x 129mm

  • Weight: 127g

  • RRP: £9.99

The File on H

Two Irish-American scholars from Harvard journey to Albania in the 1930s with a tape recorder (a 'new fangled' invention) in order to record the last genuinely oral epic singers. Their purpose, they say, is to show how Homer's epics might have been culled from a verbal tradition. But the local Governor believes its an elaborate spying mission and arranges for his own spy to follow them.The two dedicated scholars realise only too late that they have stumbled over an ants' nest.

This simple tale by Albania's most eminent and gifted novelist serves to lift the veil on one of the most secret and mysterious countries of modern Europe.

  • Imprint: Vintage Classics

  • ISBN: 9780099497196

  • Length: 176  Pages

  • Dimensions: 198mm x 12mm x 129mm

  • Weight: 127g

  • RRP: £9.99

Reviews

  • Witty and touching. It consolidates Kadare's reputation as one of the finest writers to emerge from communist Europe

    Sunday Times

  • Eloquent, engaging and poignant

    Irish Times

  • A wicked and amusing satire of provincial life...it is also an elegiac celebration of the power of poetry

    Times Literary Supplement

  • Funny, strange, and melancholy

    Guardian

  • Knife-sharp satire...originality shines through

    The Times

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About the Author

Ismail Kadare

Ismail Kadare is Albania's best-known novelist and poet. Translations of his novels have appeared in more than forty countries. He was awarded the inaugural Man Booker International Prize in 2005, the Jerusalem Prize in 2015, and the Neustadt Prize in 2020.

Ismail Kadare

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