The afterlife of a dictatorship: Ismail Kadare’s post-communist reckoning with the Albanian past

Abstract

<jats:p> Legal processes of lustration have been carried out unevenly in the wake of Eastern Europe’s communist regimes. In countries where legal and political will is lacking, writers have carried out a role of literary lustration, occupying the empty spaces in civic consciousness and contributing to the rebuilding of social trust. The work of leading Albanian writer Ismail Kadare represents a contemporary case study in literary lustration. In his post-communist novels, Kadare seeks to rebuild a national narrative by exploring the effects of the past on the present and seeking truth, if not necessarily justice, in his country’s immediate past. Kadare’s post-communist novels chronicle the ongoing psychological and social effects of the dictatorship as the past is held to account for the aberrations of the present. Kadare recognizes the human aspects of loss and oppression, showing their political and social consequences for a nation battling to emerge from its traumatic past. </jats:p>