‘Comrade Enver wants to speak with you,’ came the voice over the telephone.

It was some time in 1958 or 1959, and Ismail Kadare – the distinguished Albanian author, who died earlier this month – hardly knew what to say. Why did Enver Hoxha, the communist dictator of Albania, want to talk to him? Then a 22-year-old student at the Gorki Institute in Moscow, he was just starting out on a literary career. Straight away, he thought of Boris Pasternak. Since winning the Nobel Prize for Literature a little while before, Pasternak had been ruthlessly persecuted by the Soviet leadership. Kadare had even taken part in the protests again him. What if Hoxha was going to do the same to him? It was only natural to worry. As it turned out, Hoxha had seen one of Kadare’s poems in the newspaper and was calling to congratulate him – a signal mark of favour. But how should Kadare respond? Should he be flattered? Or appalled? Was it his task as a writer to criticize the dictatorship, or collaborate? Or…neither?

This question – more than anything else – dominated Kadare’s literary career. Indeed, it is difficult to see how it could have been otherwise. From first to last, his life was so closely intertwined with Hoxha’s own that they might almost have been lovers, brothers, or enemies.

Kadare was born in 1936, in the southern Albanian town of Girokastër, where Hoxha’s own family, too, had their home. Nestled amount the mountains, within sight the Greek border, it was a wild, in-between place, where Muslims lived side-by-side with Orthodox Christians, and smugglers came and went at will – a perfect place for any poet. As Kadare remembered in Kronikë në gur (Chronicle in Stone, 1970), it suffered more than most during the war. As Italian, German, and Greek forces battled for control of the region, all the old certainties – the rough justice of Kanun (customary law), the clan structure, the brutality of vendetta – came tumbling down, leaving only doubts behind.

Kadare was too young to join Hoxha’s partisans, even if he had wanted to. He was barely eight years old when the communist government came to power in November 1944. He was only dimly aware of Hoxha’s bitter struggle to prevent Stalin from absorbing Albania into Tito’s Yugoslavia. But he was exactly the right age to benefit from the radical campaign of modernization which Hoxha then unleashed. Almost every aspect of the Albanian economy was transformed. Land was redistributed, the first railways were built, and industry – almost non-existent before – suddenly burst into life. Most importantly, education was completely reformed. Hoxha realized that, if Albania was to survive, its people needed to ‘feel’ Albanian – and where better to foster that than the classroom? The Albanian language was standardized; and in a matter of years, the literacy rate jumped from 15 per cent to more than 90 per cent.

Growing up in this brave new world, Kadare flourished. He read voraciously; and, after discovering Macbeth, was drawn towards literature. He published his first collection of poetry Frymëzime djaloshare (Boyish inspirations) at just 18 years old. Like almost every other boy his age, he was a committed communist. It never occurred to him that anyone could seriously oppose Hoxha’s regime. He had no nostalgia for the 1920s or 1930s, no wistfulness for old King Zog – only high hopes for the future.

Luckily for Kadare, Albanian literary culture was just beginning to recover. What had passed for intellectual life in the past had largely been wiped out during the occupations and post-war upheaval; and, at first, Hoxha had ruthlessly persecuted anyone suspected of voicing – let alone writing – counter-revolutionary opinions. But by the mid-1950s, Hoxha had begun to recognize that Albanian national identity needed more than just education: it also needed a ‘national’ literature. To be sure, this was no ‘post-totalitarian’ liberalization. Far from it. There was no question of tolerating dissident voices, much less of relaxing state controls. But new opportunities were opened to writers of talent. In 1954, the monthly journal Nëntori (November) was launched, followed a few years later by Drita, an avowedly literary magazine published by the Union of Artists and Writers.

It was on the crest of this wave that Kadare published Princesha Argjiro (Princess Argjiro, 1958). A fanciful, poetic account of the foundation of Gjirokaster by a legendary Byzantine princess, this was denounced for both its historical inaccuracies and its problematic ideological stance. Such was its literary quality, however, that it was brought to the attention of Liri Belishova, a member of the Central Committee. While recognising Kadare’s faults, Belishova asked that his errors should be explained to him kindly, since he was ‘still young’. The request was then countersigned by Nexhmije Hoxha – the dictator’s wife, and an important power broker in her own right – a clear indication that, within government circles, Kadare’s sign was on the rise.

By then, Kadare had already been selected to study at the Gorki Institute for World Literature in Moscow. He arrived at a pivotal moment. Two years earlier, the Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev had delivered his ‘Secret Speech’, denouncing Stalin’s reign of terror – and holding out the prospect of a more open cultural environment. Thanks, in part, to this, Kadare encountered a range of new Western authors, including Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus.

But it was the ‘Pasternak affair’ which shaped him most profoundly. As he knew, Pasternak had run into controversy some twenty years before, over his role in the imprisonment of his friend, the poet Osip Mandelstam. After Mandelstam was arrested, Stalin – an avid reader – had unexpectedly called Pasternak to ask for his opinion. Accounts of what passed between them differed: some claimed that Pasternak had defended Mandelstam, others that he had failed to do so. Now, Pasternak was the victim. However vehemently Khrushchev might have rejected the Stalinist past, it was evident to Kadare that no dictatorship would ever forgive its critics – no matter how talented, or co-operative, they might be. The only question for a writer was: what to do?

Kadare didn’t know. When he received Hoxha’s call, he could only stammer out a feeble ‘thank you’. And perhaps understandably so. After all, it wasn’t the sort of decision any author would have taken lightly. Before Kadare had the time to reflect further, however, Albania’s relationship with the USSR had soured. Since he had been in Moscow, Hoxha had become increasingly suspicious of Khrushchev’s intentions. For the Soviets, the priority was to ensure continued access to the naval base at Vlora, their only major port on the Mediterranean; but rising tensions between Albania and Yugoslavia put this in doubt. Hoxha was worried that, in order to achieve the USSR’s aims, Khrushchev might sacrifice Albania to its neighbour. At a meeting of communist parties in Moscow in November 1960, Hoxha therefore broke off relations with the Soviets, in favour of a closer alliance with China.

For Kadare, this was an alarming development. In September 1961, he was recalled from Moscow. His closest supporter in the Central Committee, Liri Belishova, had been sent to the labour camps. Even his then-unpublished novel Qyteti pa reclama (The City without Signs; 1959), a critique of socialist careerism, was beginning to look misguided.

Returning to Tirana, Kadare found work as a journalist. He did not, however, stop writing. Encouraged by a well-placed friend, he published Gjenerali i ushtrisë së vdekur (The General of the Dead Army; 1963). Often said to be his masterpiece, this was the story of an Italian general and a priest who are sent back to Albania after the war to repatriate the bodies of fallen soldiers. It was not a critical work, by any stretch of the imagination. But in stylistic terms, Kadare had not moved on significantly since Princess Argjiro, five years before. The book was heavily criticised for its rejection of socialist realism – and earned Kadare the hostility of the Sigurimi (security services), who suspected him of harbouring pro-Western views. Had it not been translated into French in 1970, it might very well have brought his literary career to a premature end. As it was, it became an international bestseller. There would be no fewer than three film adaptations, including one starring the Italian heart-throb Marcello Mastroianni. On the strength of this, a French reviewer even named Kadare and Hoxha as the two best-known Albanians in the world.

Kadare’s success transformed his relationship with the regime. Although, in the Soviet Union, an international readership was often a mark almost of shame, in Hoxha’s Albania, it was an advantage. Unlike Khrushchev, Hoxha had literary pretentions of his own. He had already penned one novel, and a second was rumoured to be in the works. Having studied at the University of Montpellier, he also placed an especially high value on French opinion. Whatever officials might think of Kadare’s style, Hoxha was astute enough to realise that his fame reflected well on Albania – and, by extension, on his own leadership. At long last, Kadare was safe. Although he was free neither from suspicion nor state control, he was left in no doubt that from now on, he was Hoxha’s man.

Then it hit him. The solution to the problem that had tormented him since Moscow. He didn’t have to choose between collaboration or dissent, after all. There was a third way. Hoxha was not beyond redemption, Kadare realized. Whatever crimes the dictator had committed up to then, he could always change. He could ‘change his mask, like an actor reappearing on the stage in a different role’. All that was needed was to give him the right script, the right costume. This was where Kadare came in. Now that he was under Hoxha’s protection, he could use his writing as a ‘corrective mask’ – to show him how he should ‘act’. Provided he was careful to portray the dictator in as flattering a light as possible, he could discreetly steer him away from his worst tendencies, and towards positive reforms. He would be the Seneca to Hoxha’s Nero. Or, depending on how you looked at it, a Pasternak with a spine.

Kadare put this to the test with his novel Dimri i vetmisë së madhe (Winter of Great Solitude). Taking its title, in part, from Shakespeare’s Richard III, this told the story of Hoxha’s break with the Soviet Union through the eyes of a fictional translator, Besnik Struga. Thanks to Kadare’s privileged position, he was given access to the official records of the Albanian delegation’s meetings with Khrushchev in the winter of 1960, giving his narrative the ring of truth. In the first version, published in 1973, he portrayed Hoxha as a realistically drawn personality, struggling valiantly against an overbearing Soviet presence. But the dictator’s heroism is nevertheless ambiguous. At the end of the novel, Kadare showed how the subsequent withdrawal of Soviet support had only made ordinary people’s lives worse.

It was a mistake. No sooner had Winter of Great Solitude appeared in print than it was abruptly withdrawn from circulation. Kadare was ordered to revise the text completely, including the title; and in 1975-6, he was sent to work on a farm in the western plains as punishment. Not until 1978 was a new version of the novel republished as The Great Winter. Much toned down, it now portrayed Hoxha as a tool of history, an embodiment of a long-subjugated nation struggling – and failing – to make its way along the road of progress.

Kadare was chastened by the experience. But he was not yet discouraged. His fault – or so he seems to have believed – was one of style, rather than substance. Even before the definitive version was finished, he had begun experimenting with a new ‘Aesopian’ mode of writing. Rather than trying to confront Hoxha’s regime with recent events, he now used stories from the remote past to allegorize the country’s present. Most particularly, he was concerned to highlight the dangers of modernization. Ura me tri harqe (The Three Arched Bridge, 1978) was a typical example. Based on a popular folk legend, this haunting novel described the construction of a bridge across the Ujana e Keqe river in the late fourteenth century. Unfortunately, the petty bureaucrats in charge of the project are so short-sighted that they fail to recognise the threat posed by the Ottoman Empire – and are oblivious to the fact that, in the event of an invasion, the bridge could be used against them. Perhaps most striking, however, was Prilli i thyer (Broken April, 1980). Set in the 1930s, Kadare’s novel uses the story of a blood feud to contrast the violent customs of the past with the stultifying, ineffective, laws of his own day.

Little by little, however, Kadare’s doubts about Hoxha began to grow. After being ‘relegated to the country’, he began to suspect that his dreams of reform had been an illusion – and that literature and dictatorship might be more incompatible than he had supposed. In The Twilight of the Eastern Gods (1978), he returned to the anti-Pasternak protests he had seen in Moscow, almost twenty years before. His view of Pasternak was now more forgiving, even sympathetic. Without sparing his own involvement, Kadare emphasised not only the artificiality of the protests, but also the deadening effect the campaign against Pasternak had had on socialist writing – suggesting, perhaps, that in the face of dictatorship, the writer was all but powerless.

As Hoxha grew weaker and more suspicious, Kadare’s fears only grew more acute. As he warned in Pallati i ëndrrave (The Palace of Dreams, 1981), there was a risk that the country would collapse into ethnic violence. More than that, Kadare himself was now in danger. Now that Hoxha was unable – or unwilling – to protect him, he was ruthlessly targeted by the security services. There was a real possibility that, even in the event of an orderly transfer of power, he might be quietly bumped off. Terrified, Kadare arranged for the manuscript of Hija (The Shadow, 1994) – his most darkly pessimistic novel – to be smuggled out of the country and hidden in a bank vault in Paris, with instructions for it to be published should anything happen to him.

After Hoxha’s death in 1985, Albania succumbed to political chaos. Although his successor, Ramiz Ali, tried to uphold the dictatorship, communism was already collapsing. Just as in the Soviet Union, attempts at liberalization were too limited – and too late. Popular protests broke out; police were deployed; and in the ensuing clashes, the regime teetered on the brink of disintegration. Even feuding made a comeback, as Kadare later dramatized in Lulet e ftohta të marsit (Cold Flowers of March, 2000). Disappointed and afraid, Kadare finally fled Albania for France in 1990.

Kadare’s years in Paris were among the most personally rewarding of his life. His fame was at its peak. He was awarded the lucrative Prix Mondial Cino Del Duca – and would be nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature no fewer than fifteen times over the coming decades. It was said that there was scarcely an Albanian household without at least one of his books.

Yet he seemed unable to escape Hoxha’s shadow. Even now, years later, he was still deeply troubled by Albania’s headlong dash towards modernization. Given the chaos Albania was then going through, it was tempting to ask whether Hoxha’s excesses had been a reasonable price to pay for the progress he had achieved. Already, many Albanians – especially in the south – looked back at his rule with affection, even wistfulness. Indeed, as late as 2016, a plurality (45 per cent) believed that he had a positive effect on the country. But Kadare remained unconvinced. In Piramida (The Pyramid, 1992), he determinedly painted the pharaoh as both modernizer and tyrant.

Kadare was even more conflicted about his relationship with Hoxha. After returning to Albania in 1992, he increasingly began to question his ‘third way’. Had he been naïve to suppose that he could ‘reform’ Hoxha’s dictatorship?

In his last book, Kur sundesit grinden (When Rulers Quarrel, 2018; published in English as The Dictator Calls), he returned once again to Pasternak, albeit this time with uncertainty rather than sympathy or fear. Quizzically, sceptically, he laid out all the conflicting accounts of Pasternak’s conversation with Stalin, both critical and exculpatory. Now and then, he paused to offer his thoughts, or to express doubts. But he never comes to a conclusion about what Pasternak actually said – or whether he was to blame for not saving Mandelstam. The question is left open for the reader to decide.

Kadare’s enquiry is set against the backdrop of his own call with Hoxha, just after Pasternak won the Nobel Prize. He makes no attempt to hide his own stuttering, stammering response. Indeed, by interspersing his narrative with strange, confusing dreams, he even makes us doubt the reliability of his own memory. The parallel between him and Pasternak, Hoxha and Stalin is hard to ignore. It becomes almost a parable of his entire career. Did Kadare really hesitate in that call? Was his attempt to ‘correct’ the Albanian dictator so very different from collaboration? Or was he just used by Hoxha – only to be cast aside at the last? Kadare doesn’t say. It is up to us to decide. And in the end, perhaps that vulnerability – that openness to either innocence or guilt – is the true test of his genius.