A Girl in Exile by Ismael Kadare: book review

A Girl in Exile (2009, English version 2016) is set in Albania from 1945 to 1991.

The girl in exile is Linda B. She is dead, with a signed copy of a book in her possession. The author of the book is playwright Rudian Stefa.

An investigator in the Party Committee questions Rudian about Linda’s death. Goverment surveillance pervades everyone’s lives and nothing can be hidden.

Inadvertently, Rudian reveals a secret – information that the oppressive regime does not know. Now Rudian wants to know how the investigation is going – more importantly, he wants to know how much the Party know about him.

What really happened to Linda B? Rudain’s friend Megina must know what happened, but why is she avoiding him? How much should he tell his psychiatrist? How far will Rudian go to find the truth, but moreso, how far will he go to know what other people know?

Rudian becomes increasingly agitated about his involvement in the young girl’s fate, and his whole life is spiralling into chaos: ‘since when was it better for the culprit to be unaware of his own guilt?’

Kadare is a master in paranoia, the theatre of the absurd, the psychology of obsession, and the mental anguish of guilt-ridden innocence – or innocent-ridden guilt. With sparse writing, without embellishment, Kadare slowly reveals the deeply disturbing truth. Brilliantly written.

MARTINA NICOLLSis an international aid and development consultant, and the authorof:- Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom(2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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