Author's win sparks battle to find books

Published on Tuesday 28 June 2005 11:52

BOOK shops are scrambling to get hold of works by the little-known Albanian writer presented with a prestigious literary prize in the Capital.

The inaugral Man Booker International Prize was presented to Ismail Kadare at a ceremony in the National Museum last night, attended by the country’s literary and cultural elite.

The writer’s works have been hailed as masterpieces.

But his elevation to star status has caught book shops on the hop, sparking a sudden rush to get hold of copies of his work.

Matthew Perren, manager of Ottakar’s on George St, said

said: "We had to order Kadere’s books in second hand as they were still waiting on stocks from his UK publishers.

"There’s an equation: if it doesn’t sell, we don’t stock it, but of course if we don’t stock it, it won’t sell either."

Mr Perren said he expected the award to generate greater customer demand for Mr Kadare’s work and for more books by foreign authors in general.

The author himself told guests at the ceremony that Macbeth’s castle had inspired his writing.

Mr Kadere, who grew up under the repressive communist regime in Albania, said that his fascination with Scotland’s castles distracted him from his own grim circumstances.

The novelist was raised in a small Albanian city near the Greek border, overshadowed by an imposing castle.

He said: "When I was 11 or 12, however, another castle took over my mind and my imagination. It was a Scottish castle, located not so far from here - the castle of Macbeth.

"My fascination with that distant northern castle was enough to make my local fortress fade into insignificance.

"I gave myself up to that fascination as to a religion."

Mr Kadare beat off competition from literary giants such as Doris Lessing, Muriel Spark and Gabriel Garcia Marquez to win the prize.

The prize, worth 60,000, is unique in the world of literature in that it can be won by an author of any nationality, provided their work is available in English. The prize-giving marked a high point of the Capital’s permanent status as UNESCO’s first world city of literature.

One of the people responsible for securing the UNESCO title was Catherine Lockerbie, director of Edinburgh International Book Festival.

She said the Man Booker International ceremony was a massive validation of the city’s literary standing.

"This evening is the first concrete evidence of what this title can deliver. It is a watershed for a major prize in Scotland. Edinburgh has given the world so much great literature and now it is getting something back."

Edinburgh author Ian Rankin was one of many who freely admitted they had not read any of Mr Kadare’s books.

"It’s because they are so hard to find," he said, expressing the hope that this would not be the case for much longer.