SOURCE: Levy, Michele. Review of Elegy for Kosovo, by Ismail Kadare.World Literature Today 74, no. 4 (autumn 2000): 903.

In the following review, Levy compliments the emotional depth of the stories in Elegy for Kosovo, arguing that “Kadare has shaped a powerful metaphor for Kosovo and the Balkans.”

In 1389 Albanians and Serbs suspended ancient enmities to unite against the Turks at the Battle of Kosovo. Ismail Kadare's three-part prose poem [Elegy for Kosovo] traces the fate of war minstrels who must entertain the troops and memorialize the battle. His voice that of a medieval chronicler, his chosen moment mythic and historic, embedded with past, pregnant with future, his treatment of the various Balkan groups compassionate, Kadare shows how myth fuels violent history.

“The Ancient Battle” features minstrels singing hate songs to troops newly allied. Confronting mockery, they explain, “This is where we've always turned to find parts for our songs, and...