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Broken April

Ismail Kadare

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Feb 26, 2017 Judy rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: european-reading-challeng

This is a beautifully written, bleak and haunting novel, set between the wars in the mountains of northern Albania. It is very short and I read it in a day. The story centres on a family caught up in the blood feuds of this region, which sadly still exist, according to recent newspaper reports.

The book centres on a complicated etiquette of death included in the Kanun, a set of traditional laws. After one man kills to avenge an insult, a duty of revenge continues until all the men of a household ...more

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Mar 11, 2017 Karen rated it liked it

Shelves: travel-the-world, 1001

Gjorg Berisha is 26 year 0ld Albanian mountaineer, forced to avenge his brother's death according to Kanun law, a very strict and complicated feudal code of Law. The story opens with him killing a member of the family that killed his brother. Gjorg is given a 30 day grace period before his victim's family can murder him. Bessian Vorpsi and his wife Diana are on their honeymoon trip to the mountains. Bessian is fascinated with the highland people that practice the Blood Feud. While on the journey ...more

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Nov 20, 2012 Annie rated it really liked it

Shelves: world-in-80-books-2013, 1001-read

Tragic stories of blood feud in early 20th-century Albania told in a sometimes lyric, sometimes matter-of-fact voice. The details of Kanun, the ancient Albanian law, are fascinating but unsettling (even more so because blood feuds still exist in Northern Albania to this day).

Read for my Around the World in 80 Books challenge (Albania). ...more

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