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by Ismail Kadare (Author), John Hodgson (Translator)
The Traitor's Niche is a surreal tale of tyranny and rebellion, in a land where armies carry scarecrows, state officials ban entire languages, and the act of forgetting is more complicated than remembering.
At the heart of the Ottoman Empire, in the main square of Constantinople, a niche is carved into ancient stone. Here, the sultan displays the severed heads of his adversaries. People flock to see the latest head and gossip about the state of the empire: the province of Albania is demanding independence again, and the niche awaits a new trophy.
Tundj Hata, the imperial courier, is charged with transporting heads to the capital - a task he relishes and performs with fervor. As he travels through obscure and impoverished territories, he makes money from illicit side shows, offering villagers the spectacle of death. The head of the rebellious Albanian governor would fetch a very high price indeed.
Longlisted for the 2017 Man Booker Prize
"A political fable of decapitation amid totalitarian oppression combines wickedly funny satire with darker, deeper lessons ... The only signs that it's set in the early 19th century are offhand references to Byron and Napoleon; otherwise it reads less like historical fiction than timeless prophecy, as it anticipates the relentless expansion of an empire." - Kirkus
"...Kadare brilliantly examines the private cost of despotism while illustrating a crucial episode in the history of Albania. Kadare's powerful, nimble novel is a gem." - Publishers Weekly
"This piercingly beautiful work quietly delivers a persuasive sense of human violence." - Library Journal
"An extraordinary and complex novel whose time has come ... 40 years after its initial publication [in Albanian]." -The Herald
"The narrative unfurls with the shifting intensity of a dream, enriched by unsettlingly surreal details ... It is a brilliant examination of the way that authoritarian structures operate: Kafka on a grander political scale." - The Sunday Times (UK)
"Although on the surface this is a deeply compelling historical novel, its scope is wider. At heart, what Kadare seeks to demonstrate is the terrible nature of a world in which every human element is suborned to the state ... Kadare well deserves his growing European audience." - The Daily Telegraph (UK)
"In John Hodgson's lucid translation, The Traitor's Niche is absorbing from start to finish. Kadare's allegorical burlesque has rarely been so trenchant." - The Spectator (UK)
"This is a mesmerising story filled with rapidly drawn, memorable characters and vivid descriptions of architecture and desolate landscapes. It is a fable while also a portrait of subjugation." - The Financial Times
"The novel is a hymn to language, something that, as Ottoman bureaucrats intent on obliterating it instinctively know, and as Kadare's novels prove, is not easily silenced." - Daily Mail (UK)
This information about The Traitor's Niche was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
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, and the Jerusalem Prize in 2015.
John Hodgson studied at Cambridge and Newcastle and has taught at the universities of Prishtina and Tirana. This is the fifth novel by Ismail Kadare that he has translated.
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