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Ismail Kadare
Chronicle in Stone
The novel is a sequence of vignettes that tracks ordinary life during World
War II in an Albanian city and told through the eyes of a child.
The public events are distorted through the double lenses of gossiping
townfolks and the way a child hears that gossiping. The two levels of filtering
turn the war events into magical happenings.
Albania is initially under Italian occupation. The construction of a new
airfield and the establishment of a brothel for the soldiers
are the talks of the town, following a brief hysteria for witches.
Then the bombings start and a gruesome event seems to mark the city's history:
the arm of a British pilot is recovered from the wreckage of his plane.
Then the Italian soldiers leave, defeated; then they come back, with the nuns
and the prostitutes. The family has to leave, while granma stays behind.
Throughout the war calamities, a sad love story takes place: a girl who
got pregnant has disappeared, probably killed by her family. The boy looks
for her corpse in the wells, and is mistaken for a ghost. But the
girl, Susan, had been hiding in the caves during the bombings and eventually
comes out. She is then sent away to visit some family.
The war changes shape when the communists become the main enemy of the Italians.The garrison's commander is assassinated by the partisans, who eventually
take the city. Some people sided with the Italians and are executed.
One communist soldier kills a girl by accident while executing a renegade,
and is in turn executed by the other communists.
A girl with the beard leaves with the Italian troops and the town hopes
that she brings the town's bad luck with her.
The Germans come next, setting fire to the houses that belong to partisans.
The townfolks have to leave the city again. Eventually the communists take
over and install a communist dictatorship.
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