The great writer Ismail Kadare celebrates his 86th birthday this Friday. Kadare was born on January 28, 1936, in the Palorto neighborhood of Gjirokastra. 

His vocation for literature began at an early age when the young Kadare would be left with an indelible impression by reading the tragedy "Macbeth" by English author William Shakespeare. He would stay in his homeland until the end of high school when he prepared for publication his first cycle of poetry "Boyish Inspirations" (1954). Then, he settled in Tirana, where he completed his higher studies in the field of Language and Literature and graduated as a "Teacher". 

During the years 1958-1960, Kadare deepened his studies in the field of literature at the Maxim Gorky Institute in Moscow. In 1960, forced to drop out of school due to the severance of relations between Albania and the former Soviet Union, he returned home and began working as a journalist. 

In 1963, after occasional retouching, his novel The General of the Dead Army was published, which resonated across the country. The theme of the freedom-loving nature of Albanians that is observed in this work would be the main theme of the novel "Castle", published in 1970. In this process, the author was inspired to write the novel "Krushqi are frozen", which speaks on the 1981 demonstrations of Kosovo Albanians. 

However, Kadare's pen would not spare even criticism of the backward traditions of society, as the novel "Chronicle in stone" (1970). In the series of uninterrupted publications, the allegorical novel "The Clerk of the Palace of Dreams" (1981), stands out as the most curved in the entirety of Kadare's work. In the autumn of 1990, Kadare left for France and returned to his homeland after the first democratic developments. 

Since 1996, the Albanian writer is an associate (forever) member of the French Academy of Moral and Political Sciences. He has been awarded a number of international awards ("Man Booker Prize", "Prince of Asturias", etc.), as selected among the world-renowned writers, such as Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Günter Grass and Milan Kundera. To date, his works have been translated into about 45 languages. 

Kadare was decorated by the President of the Republic of Albania with the Order "Honor of the Nation", as well as by the French state with the orders "Cross of the Legion of Honor" and "Officer of the Legion of Honor". 

The General Directorate of Archives published today the copy of the manuscript of his first novel, "The City without Advertisements" (written since 1959, but remained in manuscript and published after the '90s), donated to DPA by the author on May 24, 2002.