A Dictator Calls by Ismail Kadare

 

This is the story of a call make in 1934 in Russia.  Joseph Stalin was in power and cracking down on authors and poets due to their creativity and writing critical of the government.  One famous author caught up in this was Boris Pasternak.  His Dr. Zhivago novel was banned in Russia and he lived under constant fear of being arrested as his friend, the poet Osip Mandelstam had been.  Mandelstam was arrested, some say tortured, then sent into exile.  Upon his return, he had a small window of time, then was arrested again and died in a transit camp.

The repression and fear of arrest made a call from Stalin an unwanted one as one never knew what could offend him and make one a target themself.  Kadare tells thirteen versions of the call.  He uses Pasternak friends, wife, mistress and then government agents to give their versions.  In each what stands out is the fear of making a mistake that could lead to imprisonment or death.  Stalin asks Pasternak what he thinks about Mandelstam's arrest and then chides him for not reacting in a stronger fashion. Playing on the game of telephone where a message is passed around a circle and emerges almost unrecognizable by the end, each version is a bit different depending on the viewpoint of the person relating it.  But each version throws into stark relief the tyranny of the government and the fear of those in the creative community.

Ismail Kadare was an Albanian author and poet.  He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature fifteen times and two of his books were nominated for the International Book Prize, this being one of them.  Writing under tyranny, he used fables and myths in his writing to portray the conditions under which his people were kept.  This short novel is a searing indictment of authoritarian governments and those who head them up.  This book is recommended for literary fiction readers and those interested in writers from other countries.