The general of the dead army - Ismail Kadare

This sweeping epic of post-war Albania was Kadare's first novel.

InThe General of the Dead Armythe author's theme is the essential absurdity of war. The general of the title is an Italian, sent by his government to Albania to repatriate the remains of Italian troops killed there during the war, twenty years previously. Ironically, he meets a German general who is engaged upon an identical mission, and their conversations brings out into the open the extent of their horror and guilt, newly exacerbated by their present task. As they descend from the callous trivialities of their gruesome business, past and present, to the suffering self-disgust, the author gives us glimpses of the lives of the people whose graves they are unearthing.