[In the following review, Elsie explores the speculation surrounding Kadare's political metaphors in The Concert.]

So much has changed in Albania in the six years since the original Albanian publication of The Concert (Tiranë, 1988) that the Sino-Albanian alliance now seems like ancient history. Albania was hermetically sealed off from the rest of the world during most of that extraordinarily curious marriage, which lasted from the break with the Soviet Union in 1961 through to 1978. The Concert, now finally in an English translation, is Ismail Kadare's literary digestion of a tumultuous era he lived through at first hand, and survived.

Much political speculation has since been attached to The Concert, which is Kadare's longest novel to date. Was the author's satiric treatment of Red China in permanent revolution and of upper party circles in Beijing not equally a reflection of political life in his own country? Were the machinations of Mao's inscrutable wife Jiang Qing and her Gang of Four not designed to illuminate the somber and awesome power of the equally inscrutable Albanian first lady, Nexhmije Hoxha?

Much of what went on in those years, both in China and in Albania, has only recently come to light, now that the specter has receded. The Concert adds a personal view from within communist Albania, a fascinating canvas of events and a delightful satire. The novel is Kadare's sixth to have appeared in English in recent years, following Chronicle in Stone (1987), Doruntine (1988), Broken April (1990), The General of the Dead Army (1991), and The Palace of Dreams (1993). One can only hope that more works are to come.