SOURCE: Elsie, Robert. Review of Pesha e kryqit, by Ismail Kadare. World Literature Today 66, no. 2 (spring 1992): 384-85.

In the following review, Elsie evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of Pesha e kryqit, arguing that the volume lacks Kadare's traditional “loftier vision of things.”

In no other city of Albania has the fight for survival been harder than in rocky Gjirokastër near the Greek border. If Korçë in the southeast was blessed with a relative degree of prosperity (in Albanian terms) and Shkodër in the north knew how to survive the buffets of fate with a certain Mediterranean levity and nonchalance, Gjirokastër epitomized the struggle and severity of being. This struggle is ingrained in the Gjirokastrian mentality. Its people are go-getters, competitive and successful and perhaps, as their detractors note, somewhat less generous and hospitable than elsewhere—not as bujar, as the Albanians would say.

Gjirokastër...