The Ghost Rider

Description

An old woman is awoken in the dead of night by knocks at her front door. She opens it to find her daughter, Doruntine, standing there alone in the darkness. She has been brought home from a distant land by a mysterious rider she claims is her brother Konstandin. But unbeknownst to Doruntine, Konstandin has been dead for years. What follows is a chain of events which plunges an Albanian village into fear and mistrust. Who is the ghost rider? Based upon an Albanian legend, The Ghost Rider is a haunting parable of love, death and the power of familial bonds.

Born in 1936, Ismail Kadare is Albania's best-known poet and novelist. Translations of his novels have appeared in more than forty countries. In 2005 he was awarded the first Man Booker International Prize for 'a body of work written by an author who has had a truly global impact'. He is the recipient of the highly prestigious 2009 Principe de Asturias de las Lettras in Spain.

* His fiction offers invaluable insights into life under tyranny - his historical allegories point both to the grand themes and small details that make up life in a restrictive environment. He is a great writer, by any nation's standards. -- Ben Naparstek Financial Times * One of the most important voices in literature today. -- Alan Chadwick Metro * One of the great writers of our time. Scotsman * A master storyteller. John Carey * Ismail Kadare is one of Europe's most consistently interesting and powerful contemporary novelists, a writer whose stark, memorable prose imprints itself on the reader's consciousness. Los Angeles Times * Spooky and intellectually challenging. The Herald on Sunday