The Blinding Order
1991 novel by Ismail Kadare
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The Blinding Order (Albanian: Qorrfermani, lit. 'Curse It') is a short novel written by Ismail Kadare in 1984 and published in 1991, shortly after the collapse of the hoxhaist regime in Albania.[1] Set in the 19th-century Ottoman Empire, The Blinding Order is a parable about the use of terror by authoritarian regimes,[2] and it is linked through its main subplot to the author's banned 1981 novel The Palace of Dreams.[3]
| |
| Author | Ismail Kadare |
|---|---|
| Original title | Qorrfermani |
| Language | Albanian |
| Genre | Dystopian fiction, political fiction |
| Publisher | Onufri |
Publication date | 1991 |
| Publication place | Albania |
Published in English | 2005 |
| Pages | 90 |
| ISBN | 978-1611451085 |
Background
Kadare wrote The Blinding Order in the aftermath of a terror campaign in Communist Albania.[citation needed]
Plot
Reception
Describing the novel as "superbly plotted" and "charged with bitter black humor," Kirkus Reviews praised it as "a masterly parable worthy of comparison with José Saramago's Nobel-anointed fiction.[3] Boyd Tonkin from The Independent described it as "a chilling fable of inscrutable tyranny and collective surrender".[6] Wolfgang Schneider from Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, while reviewing Der Raub des Königlichen Schlafs – a volume of 12 stories, novellas and short novels by Kadare, published in German –singled out The Blinding Order as the best one, describing it as a "grandiose story". According to him, it gives "literary form" to the "horror of the sabotage-accusation"-which numerous people in socialist countries fell victim to.[5]