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THE SUCCESSOR: A NOVEL.

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Arthur Koestler, Darkness at Noon.

"It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma." That was how Winston Churchill described the Soviet Union. If Churchill found the USSR mysterious he would have been totally perplexed by life in Albania during the isolated, despotic regime of Enver Hoxha. Ismail Kadare's "The Successor" captures that inscrutable mystery in a masterful fashion.

Ismail Kadare is an Albanian poet and writer. He is also the winner of the first Man Booker International Prize in 2005 and was selected from a list of nominees that included Saul Bellow, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Naguib Mahfouz, Milan Kundera, and Gunter Grass. His latest work published in English, The Successor, is a remarkable book that provides the reader with evidence that Kadare's award was well-deserved.

The "Successor" of the title is Mehmet Shehu. Shehu was, until shortly before his death, Enver Hoxha's right-hand man. Shehu was a commander of a Communist-led partisan brigade during the Second World War and had a reputation for brutality that led to his promotion to a division commander of the National Liberation Army. After the communist takeover of Albania Shehu led a purge of those party members suspected of being aligned with Yugoslavia's Tito after Tito's break with Stalin and the USSR. Hoxha, referred to as "the Guide" throughout the book, took Shehu under his wing and Shehu was known throughout Albania as "Number 2". As is often the case being "Number 2" was a precarious perch to sit on in regimes where aging tyrants (Stalin and Hoxha both come to mind) often struck out at those closest to them as their own mortality seemed to weaken them. Shehu was no exception. On December 17, 1981 after an apparent split with Hoxha over Albania's continued isolation from the world, Shehu was found dead in the bedroom of his newly renovated house. A gunshot wound to the head was the cause of death, one quick ruled a suicide. Shehu's death and the speculation as to the cause of his death form the heart of Kadare's "The Successor".

The book plays out like a parlor room mystery by Agatha Christie but one influenced by Franz Kafka's The Trial and Arthur Koestler's Darkness at Noon. Neither the reader (nor anyone in Albania for that matter) knows whether the Successor committed suicide or was murdered. All the doors to the house were locked, but there was a secret passageway installed during the house's renovation. There are a number of possible suspects including the Guide, the Guide's "Number 3" man and successor to the successor, the Successor's wife and daughter and the daughter's former fiancé. Kadare takes us into the tortured mind of all the suspects. They each in their own way have some feeling of culpability for the Successor's untimely death, no mater the cause. As we read the thoughts of each player in this parlor room drama Kadare paints a vivid portrait of life in Albania during the Hoxha regime. The inexplicable, never to be determined cause of death is reminiscent of Kafka's The Trial. The world of party purges where one, like the Successor, ends up accepting ones unhappy face as a result of a system he was partly responsible for bears a stark similarity to the atmosphere portrayed by Koestler in Darkness at Noon.

Kadare's prose is very well crafted even though this edition is a translation from the French which in turn is a translation from the original Albanian. It must be hard to retain much of the original flavor of a novel after two translations but despite that hardship the chapters and scenes shift from real to dream-like in an almost unspoiled fashion. This shift lends an aura of surrealism to the story, one that seems perfectly appropriate to a society for which surrealism was the norm rather than the exception.

Kadare's Successor is a wonderful, thoughtful book. For anyone interested in Kadare's work, his Three Elegies for Kosovo was also one I found immensely enjoyable. Although both books deserve to be read, I think that my having read the somewhat more accessible Three Elegies for Kosovo first enhanced my enjoyment of The Successor. However, The Successor stands up perfectly well on its own.

Ismail Kadare's THE SUCCESSOR, winner of the Man Booker International Prize for 2005, lays bare with devastating intensity the nightmare of life under the totalitarian regime of an aging and merciless dictator. This short novel will grab you by the throat and refuse to let go until you've finished, leaving you breathlessly contemplating how life can be lived on such impossible terms.

In Kadare's horrifying world, nothing is fixed - truth, reality, even time are all relative, subject to the manipulation and caprice of a single individual. Kadare's story revolves around the mysterious nighttime death of the Successor, the man designated as Number Two in the Albanian government and modeled after the real-life Mehmet Shehu. Number One is known only as the Guide, a solitary and all-powerful dictator (modeled on Enver Hoxha, the country's former dictator) whose growing sightlessness is mirrored by his growing paranoia. What really happened on the stormy night of the Successor's death? Did he commit suicide as first thought, or was it murder? What about that rumored tunnel running from the Guide's residence to the Successor's and the surprising discovery that its door could only be opened from the Guide's side? What of the role of Hasobeu, the minister of the interior and presumptive successor to the Successor, who was seen twice after midnight outside the Successor's home on the night of those fateful events? What did the Guide actually want of Hasobeu? As well, what was the role of the Successor's over-reaching architect, who surely knew of the tunnel's existence and blames his artistic vision for the Successor's death?

The entire capitol holds its collective breath for the Guide's decision - suicide or murder, and if the latter, who would be the designated perpetrator. Time passes, roles change, the Successor's family is evicted from their home, the Successor's daughter laments that her romantic life has been sacrificed for her dead father's welfare and that of the State, Hasobeu faces his political downfall in the face of the Guide's "black beast," and everyone else tries to gauge which "truth" will affect them least. In the end, the shocking facts are suggested, but like everything else in Albania's megalomaniacal world under the Guide, who can know for sure? Not even the Successor's ghost can assure us unequivocally of what happened.

Comparisons of THE SUCCESSOR to Kafka's THE TRIAL and THE CASTLE seem inevitable for their similar content as well as their Eastern European origins. Yet where Kafka assumed the viewpoint of innocent and unsuspecting citizens trapped in a faceless bureaucratic maze, Kadare carries us into the seat of power and, more particularly, to those surrounding and even aspiring to occupy it and their families. From that vantage point, THE SUCCESSOR harkens back to the spiritual and emotional desolation of books like Garcia Marquez's THE AUTUMN OF THE PATRIARCH and NOBODY WRITES TO THE COLONEL. And just as the Patriarch and the Colonel transcend the world of South America, Kadare's Guide represents not just Albania, but self-preservation-seeking theocracies and dictatorships everywhere, from Afghanistan under the Taliban (read THE SWALLOWS OF KABUL by Yasmina Khadra) to Cambodia under Pol Pot, Uganda under Idi Amin, and the Soviet Union under Lenin and Khrushchev (read almost anything by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn).

It is difficult to know what may have been lost in translating this book second hand from the French translation of the original; perhaps one day a direct translation will be available out of the Albanian. Regardless, this edition as translated by David Bellos retains more than enough power and sense of dread to justify making THE SUCCESSOR accessible to English readers. This is a compelling fictional account of life beholden to tyrannical whimsy in a place where (to paraphrase Karl Marx and turn his indictment of capitalism back onto Soviet-styled regimes) all that is solid has already melted into air and all that is sacred has already been profaned.

As Ismail Kadare says so eloquently in his dedication, "...any resemblance between the characters and circumstances of this tale and real people and events is inevitable." Amen, sadly.

This novel is based on actual events: the Albanian communist dictator Enver Hoxha ("the Guide" in this book) denounced his long-standing premier and presumed heir, Mehmet Shehu ("the Successor"), who then was said to have shot himself. Whether he was murdered or committed suicide is the question at the centre of this book, and Kadare offers an ingenious answer in the last chapter. The whole book is suffused with the fear and paranoia prevailing in a country ruled by suspicious and devious tyrant: the terror felt by those near to him and by their families; the sycophantic rivalry for his favour; the dread felt by people like doctors or architects asked to work for someone in the government in case their work is dangerously caught up in some unpredictable political manoeuvre; the cautious and nervous gossip of the population; the attempt of foreign governments to make sense of what was happening in that hermetically sealed country.

Kadare has been fortunate in his translators. Most of his books have been translated from the Albanian into French and then from the French into English - in this case by David Bellos. This is the eighth novel of Kadare's that I have read and between them there have been at least seven translators - but they all capture Kadare's unmistakeable clean and simple style.

I was reminded of the Kremlinologists, looking for clues in nods and gestures. This book succeeds in illustrating what it is like to live in this kind of environment within a smaller totalitarian state. While the average people look for clues, the leaders of the state are also in the dark and even more desperately look for clues. This is the book's strength.

The good beginning depicts the paranoia the system produces, but the narrative is weakened by dwelling on side topics. For instance, the daughter's story fits the story line, her full sexual exploits do not. Also, for the plot, the Successor's relationship with this daughter and how he came to go out on a limb for her, (celebrating her engagement to an "unapproved" family) are not developed in a way that makes them seem to be real.

The ending is unsatisfying. There is some symmetry in the empathy of the "Guide" and the "Successor". The allusion to Lin Biao is interesting, but, perhaps, should have been shaded by some prior theme to not seem as an add on. There is a vague tie up about the Successor's youth and his daughter's. There is a long (in proportion to the book's length) mental dialog of the architect.

This short book has its highs and lows, unlike Kadare's The Palace of Dreams, which covers similar turf. In "Palace" every page and every incident supports the thesis, which is not the case in here.

This is a book that although fascinating as a mystery, fascinating as a book on Albanian by one of the worlds newest and greatest writers (most of his books have been recently translated also from the French) but the deepest value of the book written by a man who is a brilliant novelist and poet has to do with a global world where all that is solid melts away and truth is defined by dominance and brutality and thus dividing a nation and also confusing individuals and as now after the cold war so much of the world is placed under these conditions..whether in the Balkans, the Middle East or in parts of North and South America this book takes on massive significance....a must read.

Kadare may be the most intriguing and maddening writer to emerge from the other side of the Wall - or, more accurately, from one of the wall's more peculiar chinks. He can write clumsily, as he proved in Three Elegies for Kosovo, and The Successor lacks the lyric grace of the literary heavyweights Kadare upset in winning the International Man Booker Prize (unless the problem is with the two rounds of translation from Albanian to French to English), but Kadare concisely captures the mood of glasnost - a short hand term for the disappearnce of central authority, replaced by deep ideological uncertainty.

The chestnut of a murder mystery is really a parlor game played by the aging, increasingly paranoid Enver Hoxha (renamed Number 1 in The Successor), while the human tragedies caused by Communism's labyrinthine party politics (the successor's daughter is unable to marry, the architect of the successor's house is guilt-ridden over the secret passageway he constructed between the houses of #1 and the successor) only presage the book's disquieting ending. In the Successor's fragmentary recollections through a medium we glimpse a reversion to a primitive future that may be just as bad as totalitarianism, likewise dominated by the basic human - and inhumane - drive to power.

Things are often not what they seem. Usually when this applies something ostensibly great turns out to be merely mundane. Occasionally, however, we meet an iceberg, an apparently small presence that becomes something vast and consequential. This latter case applies to The Successor by Ismail Kadare.

The Successor is apparently a small book. The cover shows a head in silhouette while a hand with a gun points from the left. "Just another predictable little thing in a predictable genre," were my initial thoughts. The cover illustration is apposite, however, and remains so throughout the book's short duration.

But in fact The Successor then reveals itself as a vast work, despite its obvious brevity. It's about nothing less than a whole country, its politics, its very identity in a world that is changing around it.

The country is Albania and Ismail Karade is clearly born of its very soil. At least that truth is reliable. But how would we describe a successor who does not succeed, a guide who has lost the power of sight, an architect whose plans are ignored and a young woman engaged to be married who is not in love? Things are often not what they seem to be.

The Successor has been shot, hence the cover. And yes, The Successor is a whodunnit, but in no way is it predictable. When a whole nation identifies with and is driven by the political choices of its leadership, how can it ever change organically from within? The figurehead has to go, even if he has already gone! And if change was the product of poor judgment, then should history record a suicide? And from whose perspective do we assess success? And who has the right to change history?

In his preamble, the author humorously sets the tone by announcing that "any resemblance between characters and circumstances of this tale and real people and events is inevitable." Thus, in a short book about a feud within an inner circle, Kadare creates a poetic world that mirrors reality, whose delicately-drawn images beautifully construct much larger ideas. The poignancy of a secret door that can only be opened from the outside is an idea that will last for a long time in a reader's memory. The Successor is a great little book.

Although information on the book jacket of The Successor claims that Albanian author Ismail Kadare is acclaimed worldwide, few English-speaking readers knew of him until he won the 2005 Man Booker Prize. Accessibility to his works is also hampered by the fact that for various reasons, the English translations are second hand, passing first through French.

From Kadare's introductory caveat in The Successor (" . . . any resemblance between the characters and circumstances of this tale and real people and events is inevitable") and the first sentence ("The Designated Successor was found dead in his bedroom on December 14"), the reader can quickly deduce that the novel is both historical and political. The simple plot presents the death as a mystery. Was the Successor's death suicide (the party line) or was it murder? It seems as though the Successor chose "to have himself hauled away by two black oxen . . .". Details are sparse, varied, and presented in flashback by potential murders and others. The country is Albania, but the year is not given. Most characters have titles but no names. The exceptions are a truly fictional daughter (the actual Successor had only sons) and another would-be successor Adrian Hasobeu. At this point, the reader who cannot tolerate ambiguity can consult the book jacket or more elaborate resources. Since this is a fictional account, facts might not be that important. The text explains, moreover, that Albania is governed by a Communist dictarorship; parnoid suspicion rather than truth reigns. Truth is not to be found, but the book presents an engaging read by holding out the bait. While the mysterious death of a leader is more prevalent in Communist countries, such deaths also occur in democracies--John F. Kennedy. Documented facts do not reveal the facts about such deaths. The style of this novel suits the subject well. It is a cross between The Trial and Rashomon (other reviewers have made the comparison). Kadare combines Kafka's nightmarish landscapes with subjectivity and folktale elements.

Like the Successor, Ismail Kadare is also hauled around by two oxen, but one is black and one is white. Because he had close but reputedly necessary Communist party connections, Kadare has received some controversial press from Albanians and other informed individuals. Interesting information about Kadare can be found on blogs. In the final analysis, however, he does write well.

The Successor

Ismail Kadare won the 2005 Man Booker International Prize, awarded every two years to a living author who has compiled an outstanding body of literary work. In The Successor, Kadare takes up the subject of the murder of Mehmet Shehu who, at the time of his death, was second in command to Albanian dictator Enver Hoxha. Second in commands have not fared well in Albania. In 1948, number two man Koçi Xoxe was arrested as a traitor and executed.

By all accounts, Shehu was a brutal and repressive figure who lived in an exclusive area of downtown Tirana, Albania's capital city. This area, known as Bloku (The Block) was not accessible to ordinary Albanians, which means Shehu's killer came from the upper echelon political ranks and his presence in the area would not have raised undue alarm or suspicion. Kadare is not a disinterested observer. He has his own theory of who the murderer was, and spins his tale in deft and clear language, erecting a classical apparatus to warn of trouble: unusually rainy night, large number of government cars in the area, light seeping from underneath The Successor's door at 2AM, and a complete absence of noise.

The most terrifying and nightmarish aspect of the novel comes in the final chapter when the murdered Shehu is given back his voice. As the newest member of the cosmos, he issues a warning bound to send a chill up the spine of most attentive readers.

Albanian author, Ismail Kadare, sets The Successor (2003) in his homeland in 1981. The man soon to succeed dictator, Enver Hoxha, was shot dead on the night of December 13. The government announces his suicide due to "nervous depression."

International press report two possibilities: suicide or murder.

In a time of upheaval in the Balkans when Outer Albania (Kosovo) had been put down and in a time when suicide was "a mortal stain," intelligence analysts conduct an investigation into The Successor's death.

It was said that The Successor's decline began in September when he moved to a new residence and announced his daughter's engagement. The suitor broke off the engagement. "People may have slaughtered each other, may have flayed each other alive, but not once had a wedding been postponed, let alone cancelled!"

An autopsy was conducted, but revealed nothing. Perhaps it was murder. Around midnight on the evening of his death, a man had been seen slipping into The Successor's new residence, called the Bllok. Someone said he was holding something black "like an old kind of camera." The case then turned to a door in the residence: a door with one-way hinges. Rumor then mounted that no autopsy was ever carried out, "not by oversight but intentionally."

Conspiracy theories arose--The Successor sacrificed his daughter to initiate "a change of line" which "would have sounded the death knell of Albania." Then the successor to The Successor was arrested.

This political murder mystery, with its rumors and tensions, rules no one understands, and dream-reality perspectives, will leave you guessing until the very last page.

Martina Nicolls, author of "The Sudan Curse" and "Kashmir on a Knife-Edge"