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A review by nlgn
Broken April by Ismail Kadare
5.0
Casts experiences of travelling in Albania in a whole new light. Now I understand why people were concerned when we rode off into the mountains...
Broken April is remarkable in how it captures so much in what might seem quite a constrained setting: the varieties of human relationship - romantic, family, enemy, stranger - the country and the city and the passing of old ways, the emergence of cultural self-awareness, the landscape...
The tone occasionally feel too discursive or didactic, but the material is so interesting (and, to me at least, so unknown) that it is easy to overlook this minor gripe.
Broken April is remarkable in how it captures so much in what might seem quite a constrained setting: the varieties of human relationship - romantic, family, enemy, stranger - the country and the city and the passing of old ways, the emergence of cultural self-awareness, the landscape...
The tone occasionally feel too discursive or didactic, but the material is so interesting (and, to me at least, so unknown) that it is easy to overlook this minor gripe.