"The Daughter of Agamemnon": In one of the official stands, during the celebration of May Day, in Tirana, a guest, while watching the endless parade of delegations, suddenly has the impression that he distinguishes, among the banners and portraits of the country's leaders, the face of the ancient Greek commander Agamemnon. Illusion? Or perhaps the result of the despair of a man devastated by the separation from his beloved?
If only that was it... The reappearance of the figure of the conqueror of Troy, famous for sacrificing his daughter Iphigenia to state logic, is the ancient foundation on which the events described in this novel are based: the stunning story of a love that was unexpectedly drawn in and torn apart by the cold gears of the state machinery.
"The Successor": What happened on the night of December 13th, in the bedroom of the "designated successor", whose body was found at dawn with a bullet in the heart?
The latest novel by Ismail Kadare is inspired by the darkest enigma in the history of modern Albania: the mysterious death of the dolphin of the Albanian communist dictator Enver Hoxha.
Even today, a quarter of a century after this death, despite the opening of state archives and endless investigations, the mystery remains unsolved.
Starting from a real event, to which he was able to give universal dimensions, Ismail Kadare, through the personality of the "Successor", managed to add a new member to the family of great archetypes of world literature, alongside Judas, Agamemnon, Brutus, Joseph K., among others.
These two short novels not only bring the same characters on stage, but also constitute one of the most complete literary compositions of Ismail Kadare.