Why Guitar?

Rock music is an extremely well known type of music; hence a lot of people like to become skilled at guitar playing. It has become popular to spend time playing guitar. Your attractiveness increases exponentially if you play a guitar skillfully. The guitar is all around us. It’s a versatile instrument. Because of its marvelous popularity it has become a symbol of social revolution.

There are a few teenagers who’re really serious about a profession as rock stars, but in most cases most people plan to study guitar for the sake of learning. A good number of people lose hope very soon and give up their own vision, because they cannot find out the most advantageous way to learn playing a guitar.

Your View Of Guitar

How do you view a guitar? What is it that you would like to be? A guitar owner, a guitarist, or perhaps a music performer who conveys music using a guitar!

If you want to be only a guitar owner, you only need an adequate amount of money to purchase a guitar. Then guitar is just one more gadget, just like a portable play station, a computer game, or a fashion accessory. If you decide you fit in with this segment, how much time will it take you to have fun with a guitar? 30 minutes? You basically really want people to see you playing the guitar.

If you wish to be described as a guitar player, you have to be no-nonsense about it. You have got to dedicate a great many time gaining knowledge of the basic principles of guitar playing. Will you be studying all on your own or from your close friends? How Long can it take you to learn about guitar? You better understand that it �±s really a life long process.

When you are a musician who uses guitar to share his music, you also are focused entirely on your playing. At this level you without a doubt know precisely the total breadth of music. When you’re a superb music performer, you not only play your guitar beautifully but can also intelligently discuss music. People in this particular segment listen to, read, and examine all genres of music. How much time should it take these guitar players to learn guitar? They know that it is a practice for their complete lifetime.

What’s the prime variance between Individuals who would like to be guitar players, and musicians who showcase their music through guitar? Well, the guitar players are just guitar players, while a few musicians grow to be legends.

Internal Motivation Or External Influence

People who find themselves inspired by external influences commonly don’t have the discipline required to become guitar player. Whenever they understand that they should put in a significant amount of effort, they throw in the towel and proceed to a subsequent ‘smart’ activity. Work and delayed gratification are definitely not what they bargain for. In contrast, should you have an internal motivation to master guitar, you will learn it, no matter what it takes.

Learning guitar is much perspiration and inspiration, but it is equally crucial to love the process of practicing guitar. Learning to play the guitar does take a long time. The length of time, depends absolutely upon you.

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Let’s get one thing straight, Shorty aren’t an all singing all dancing group of (let’s be politically correct here) ‘vertically-challenged people’. Neither are they a girl band who named themselves so, out of devotion to 50 Cent and that infamous line from the song In Da Club. Far from that, Shorty are, with the exception of two band members, well over six foot tall and are, with the exception of vocalist Celeste, male. Shorty was just an aptly ironic name for a band whose members are often referred to as ‘trees’. As for 50 Cent and the reference to ‘fine women’ Shorty were around long before that. What the band Shorty can be referred to however, is a seven- piece hip hop/funk collective that thrive on the live scene who have already been establishing themselves as a force in UK hip hop to be reckoned with.

The beginnings of Shorty started in Leeds when bassist Dan French met guitarist Jim Reynolds and drummer Charlie Taylor at university. Later on in London, DJ Hudge along with MCs Ducane and Cisco filled in the gaps while vocalist Celeste completed the picture when they found her singing at a friend’s party. So what happens when you throw seven strong minded people together and ask them to produce a sound? The good news is, Shorty landed on the right side of the term ‘mish-mash’.

With seven people who are all massively into music, how does a band find their sound? Shorty have taken in a varied range of influences; from Led Zeppelin to Gangstarr, from Stevie Wonder and Lauryn Hill to A Tribe Called Quest and Fela Kuti. These influences have thus contributed to their producing a sound that can’t quite be placed into a genre as such. Celeste agrees that “it is a fantastic thing although it can be difficult to explain sometimes”. The reason it is a fantastic thing is because, Shorty have found a way to ‘smash it all down and mix it up’ and produce something that appeals. “When you look at people’s influences these days you find that they like a bit of rock and they like a bit of hip hop but they also might like a bit of jazz and a bit of soul. There aren’t necessarily too many bands that mix them all together. They find it refreshing as music genres aren’t so defined anymore. It appeals to a much broader section of people,” say the band.

Their sound is further emphasised by their lyrics which broach anything that needs calling to attention. The majority of lyrics are written by Cisco, DuCane and Celeste who say that their songs, “come from experiences or things in a particular moment that spark a creative process.” Shorty’s songwriting process is as organic as sitting in Celeste’s flat, looking out a window and finding inspiration from an average Brixton street nut.

So does a band that so evidently know what it takes to produce good music ever think of using it as a tool to perhaps get political? Shorty acknowledge that “there are people who do the political thing really well and they should be commended, but we don’t want to jump on the bandwagon and do the political thing, just for the sake of doing politics.” They like to consider themselves more of a party band. That is not to say however, that they would ever sway in the direction of so many hip hop type bands that have started to jump into that other bandwagon of superficiality.

The superficiality here refers to the notion of sex, ‘bling’ and videos that feature ‘wall to wall ass shaking’ which more often than not, gets clumped into the urban culture scene. Shorty realise that they inevitably are representative of this scene and stress that they want no part of the trivial side of things. Says Celeste, “It’s a shame because there’s a whole generation of kids that are ‘plonked’ in front of MTV and there’s a whole generation growing up on this sort of degradation. It breeds ignorance and the more cynical that this generation gets, the more sex and porn that they have to sell to drag people in. There’s no aspect of our music that ever goes there and there never can be.” Shorty would rather stick to making quality music that is “slightly quirky and appeal to different people’s sense of humour.”

With attitude and their feet firmly stuck to the gravel, Shorty have been carving themselves a niche in the UK urban/hip hop scene. They’ve been dubbed the next big thing and have collected themselves the Diesel-U-Music Award for Hip Hop back in 2002. The band have worked with UK heavyweight producers, Blackbeard and have toured in Europe which included a Roots Manuva after show. Shorty reckon they would do well in the US as their brand of sound that blends different sorts of music has more of a niche there. However, for now, they are setting their sights on home ground. “There is a lot of talent and good music that hasn’t been given the chance and hopefully, we’ll be seen as a breath of fresh air,” says Hudge.

In the pipeline, is a mixed tape that they are in the process of producing for online release which will feature the best of five or six tracks that could sum up their sound and Shorty hope to be seen at the festivals of 2006. In the nearer future, they will be playing Cargo on 8th March 2006.

This band is set to make an impact. A tall order but one Shorty aren’t afraid to take on.

Cargo
83 Rivington St
Kingsland Viaduct
Shoreditch
London EC2A 3AY
www.cargo-london.com
www.shortyonline.co.uk

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Tom Hunter tells these stories using carefully staged, large format photographs, restaging them in compositions that often directly refer to classic paintings of the past, many of the paintings to which Hunter has referred for his compositions can be found in the National Gallery. Using his friends as models, Hunter directs them to use gestures, body language and facial expressions in the same way as the characters seen in paintings by historic artists.

Left: The Fight between the Lapiths and the Centaurs piero di cosimo c. 11500-15 (The National Gallery, London)

Hunter first came to public attention in 1998, when he won the John Kobal Photographic Portrait Award, with a photograph entitled Woman Reading a Possession Order. With its meticulously arranged composition and sensitively captured light, it is a direct quotation from Vermeer’s painting, A Girl Reading a Letter by an Open Window (Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Gemäldegalerie, Dresden). Hunters reputation was further established with a series of engaging, puzzling and compelling photographic re-workings of other paintings from the past. They provoke thoughts about issues that are relevant in our everyday lives, however shocking.

Girls’ Sex Acts in Club: Court. Cop ‘It can only be described as having sex through clothes’

Living in Hell and Other Stories continues Hunters’ interest in the stories of inner-city life that take place in his own locality, having lived in Hackney since the age of 19. Tom Hunter is not a photo journalist. His photographs are not literal reconstructions of the actual events. It is not the specific details of the story that attract him; rather it is the idea of a story that is provoked by the eye-catching headline. The idea of turning to his local press as a source for inspiration was suggested by the example of Thomas Hardy. Thomas, like hunter, was born and brought up in Dorset and would trawl through back copies of his local paper to find the stories of public hangings, wife selling and other unlikely events that he eventually wrote about in his novels.

Murder: Two Men Wanted

‘Living in Hell’ was the headline printed in The Hackney Gazette above the story of a 74-year-old woman whose house was infested with vermin. Borrowing from the National Gallery’s Four Figures at a Table by the Le Nain brothers, Hunter composed a photograph with the help of a retired actress and several hundred cockroaches bought over the internet. The Le Nains’ paintings of around 1643 show a woman and children in a modest peasant interior. She has the expression of a care-worn older woman tempered with a quiet sense of self-respect; in Hunters 2005 version the woman has no companions, she is alone. She sits wrapped up against the cold, the electric heater switched off. The sofa is filthy and worn, decaying food lies uneaten. A naked electric light bulb illuminates the room and shows literally hundreds of cockroaches crawling over every surface. This harsh lighting starkly reveals her shocking fate. The Le Nain’s dignified poverty is ripped from its original 17th century context and in 2005, becomes brutally undignified.

A Satyr mourning over a Nymph

National Gallery paintings depict the eternal themes of love, sex, violence, life and death and Tom Hunter has used these and reflected on them in an uncompromisingly contemporary way. He has turned newspaper headlines into commentaries on both the modern world in which we live and the classic themes seen represented throughout the National Gallery.

Cupid complaining to Venus by Lucas Cranach the Elder, c.1525
(the National Gallery, London)
Girls’ Sex Acts in Club: Court. Cop ‘It can only be described as having sex through clothes’

Tom Hunter : Living in Hell and Other Stories
Until 12 March
The National Gallery
Trafalgar Square
London, WC2N 5DN
Tel: 020 7747 2885
www.nationalgallery.org.uk
Admission Free

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Paulo Gerbaudo looks at the parralels between film and war then and now Loin du Vietnam is both a failure and an inspiring experiment in war cinema. The film – a politically committed documentary dealing with the war in Vietnam – after its release in 1967 proved a commercial flop and was the victim of harsh critiques and early oblivion. One rare copy of the collaborative work of a number of great politically committed directors of the period such as the French Jean-Luc Godard, Alain Resnais Claude Lelouch, Chris Marker, William Klein, Agnés Varda and the Netherland’s director Joris Ivens has been recently screened at Cine Lumiére of the Institut Francais.

The project of the film sprang out of the convulse atmosphere of 1967 during the escalation of military operation in Vietnam, and was the result of incipient ‘68 politics with their stress on participation, assemblies and direct democracy. The film, while dealing with a decisive political issue of the period, also aimed at questioning the French film industry and the one author canon to stress the importance of collaborative work of the film crew and of different directors. On the other hand the challenge was to realise an alternative representation of the war as seen in its multifaceted and often “distant” manifestations.

To do this Loin du Vietnam undertakes an expressive experiment in the documentary format by mixing together heterogeneous materials that compose an instable collage, notwithstanding the intelligent work of Chris Marker in the cutting room. In the film different inspirations and footage, documentary and fiction, converge. The long monologue scene by Godard about the political role of the cinematography in face of the war together with scenes from La Chinoise, interviews with Fidel Castro and Ho-chi Minh sided by brief visual clips and other cinematographic virtuosities. However some of the best moments of the film are the ones that stick more directly to documentary cinema, such as the war and everyday life in Hanoi under American bombings filmed by Joris Ivens and his wife, William Klein’s documentary footage about demonstrations in the United States and Lelouch’s sequences from an American carrier.

The film represents the war in Vietnam in the form of a historical tragedy staged on different scenes. Not only battlefields, but also North Vietnamese villages, American barracks, occupied cities, TV sets in living rooms, and demonstrations in the streets of Europe and America. Hence war emerges not as a simple military confrontation but rather as a mechanism of violence and conflict spreading its tentacles through supply lines, news programs, minds and hearts.

The two themes, evoked in the film’s title, Vietnam and distance, grasp a pair of great ideas which is what the film is all about. First of all, Vietnam within this film is not just a name for a particular country in South East Asia, 10 000 miles away from American shores, but also the name for a particular political, military, social and cultural conflict, characterised by harsh oppositions both in national and international politics. Thus the film represents Vietnam not only as a war between nations but also as a civil war, as any modern war has to be. In a long sequence by William Klein in front of Wall Street, during a huge peace demonstration in New York, a group of brokers shout “Bomb Hanoi! Bomb Hanoi!”. Demonstrants engage along the march path in harsh verbal confrontations with war supporters. New York appears kidnapped by a vibrant hysteria.

The film then slides along a theatre of operations that spans through the globe. Going from the streets of Paris crowded by demonstrants and policemen to a village in North Vietnam where people are assisting to a theatre show blaming Johnson and United States, to a paddy field where a unit of the National Liberation Army is training in hiding, to the mountains of Cuba. Distance, in turn, can be read as the description of the condition of civil populations in western country during such a war and its being exposed to a mediated war fought far away but capable, at the same time, of destabilising internal society and politics. As New Yorker reporter Michael Arlen put it, the Vietnam War, was a “living-room war”. Distance is also the principle that underlies the hypertechnological war machine deployed by the U.S. in Vietnam: a system controlling death and destruction from afar. The image that opens the film is a load of bombs being moved from a supply ship to a carrier. Lelouch’s camera follows those bombs while they are stored and eventually armed on the aircraft. In the middle of the ocean, far away from the dead bodies of the American bombings it enables, the carrier becomes a metaphor of a war machine that acts from afar. Distance thus emerges as instrumental to power. A removal of the horror of war through the media and thanks to its being out-of-sight. As one of the demonstrants appearing in the film says “Americans support the war because it is far away. Would they think the same, if their cities were attacked?”. The answer is as elusive today as it was then, best exemplified in the voting patterns of the American people post 9/11.

Notwithstanding the timely political rethorics that in some parts of the film tend to lean towards an apology to Vietnam, the work provides a vibrant description of the conflict in Vietnam and the social unrest that surrounded it. After the release the work was also criticised for its ‘easy ironies’, but it is actually through those ironies that the film shows the hypocritical goodwill justifying a distant war. This is also what the film does through the way it is cut. For example by joining a popular pro-war song with the reality of a Saigon populated by prostitutes, or by showing a speech of general Westmoreland through a damaged TV screen.

Viewing such a film today inspires a reflection about the similarities and differences between the media propagation of that war and of the current one, the war in Iraq in which the U.S. and its coalition are engaging in. Vietnam was a fortunate topic for cinema, and before that, it was extensively and crudely covered by television and newspapers. The American army had, at least initially, favoured the work of journalists and camera men on the front (much more than ever happened before and after that) for propaganda reasons. So Vietnam became the first televised war, and the war began losing consensus when too many dead corpses on the screen began to disgust the American public’s dinner time.

The Iraq war has undergone a more technically developed coverage that pretends to transmit battle images in real time (through embedded journalists) as if it were a football match and always jumps quickly to the site of an attack or a bombing. In this rapidity of news coverage something has been lost. The media war coverage of Iraq has not only censored the images of blood, tortures and body bags. It has also disminished the importance of other aspects of such a war: the conditions of the civil population in the occupied country and the unrest uniting millions of people across the world in the biggest anti-war protests ever. This erasure of such decisive aspects of war is what Au loin du Vietnam tries to overcome by following the many links that the war ties through conflicts and solidarities all around the globe.

Iraq wars have, until now, not been as fortunate as Vietnam in their representations within contemporary cinema. The only fiction titles deserving attention are David O. Russell’s Three Kings (1999), the recently released Jarhead (2005) by Sam Mendes both dealing with soldiers’ stories during the 1991 conflict in Kuwait when Iraq invaded. Also Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004) and Robert Greenwalth’s Uncovered: The War On Iraq (2003), both documentary films, deal with the current war in Iraq even though focusing on its role in American politics. Moreover all these films and documentaries are somehow limited to an internal vision of war as seen through the individual experience of American soldiers, citizens and their nation’s destiny and fail in providing a radical representation of war in all its complexity.

With its real-time – as much tempestive as anaesthaetised – war representation, television has produced an overload of recurrent images about the war in Iraq, restraining any space for debate, comprehension and radical analysis. In this condition it is hard to develop a committed war cinema without getting lost in easy political pedagogy a là Michael Moore or in rank paternalism in Live 8 fashion. Au loin du Vietnam can, in contrast, be an inspiration for a cinema that intends to observe war and represent what the war in Iraq means not only in terms of military and political experiences and events, but also in everyday life’s impact, in London as in Baghdad. A cinema able to document its incumbence on western countries and its consequences on the civil population of Iraq. A cinema capable of seeing war at a distance.

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A fitting triumvirate for what was a…

…MISTAKE
Poor Ronaldo. Again one of the best player yesterday and probably the best youngster we have seen on show at the world-cup. To be hated, jeered and heckled around the ground by everyone must have been tough. But he’ll learn and will rise to become the next Figo. Portugal will need another two like him.

…THE GENIUSES
Ballack, Kaka, Fabregas, Torres, Zokora, Klose, Essien, Apiah, Cannavaro, Pirlo, Marqez, Robben, Henry, Viera, Makelele, Figo, Ronaldo, Maniche, Frings, Metesecher, Thuram., J. Klinsmann for coaching an impressive German team, able to break away from his dour image. A short-sleeved manager on his way to become a football guru and a man who gave us a much nicer image of Germany in the 21st century….Gerrard, A. Cole, Lehman, Buffon,…
Those are my geniuses for this W-Cup…and yours?

..AND THE PENALTY
…Taker…Well, I almost forgot the genius to top them all: ZINEDINE ZIDANE. Nerve of steel…eagle-like look…dropped shoulders, bag of tricks, wizzardry aplenty,..aching back and tigh..bald patch…economy of smile and words..No Wags allowed…the beauttiful game as it should be played, with class, instinct and balance in the air….sit down and enjoy a maestro at work…unique sight on a football pitch…’The Zizou code’ might never be broken again…He will now be remembered in the same breath as one of the true great of the game, fellow number 10, main driving force behind a team’s revival and inspiration to a nation: Diego Armando Maradona…

Bonsoir!

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Nina considers the musical language of jazz to be one of her greatest inspirations. Her exhibition, Jazz in the City is the culmination of a life’s work for this innovative and unique artist.

It also begins a tour featuring Nina as an artist in residence, to include The International Jazz Festival in Moscow, during which Nina’s work will be exhibited at the State Museum for Contemporary Art, Moscow.

Nina was born in the Russian city of St. Petersburg and obtained a Masters Degree from Moscow’s Gubkin Academy. In 1991 after

she moved to Germany, Nina started her career as an artist where she studied under teacher and artist Margarita Budini. From 1994 to 1998 she established her studio in The Netherlands and in 2000 she moved to London where she has been living and working as an artist. Now based in Richmond, Nina finds artistic inspiration for her paintings in music, poetry and philosophy. The powerful colours and dramatic shapes in her paintings reflect her own experience of living in different cultures, while still infused within her Russian heritage. Nina says of her traveling experience, “I have found the most success in London, because London is a cultural centre and a major port. Kinky-Kalinki Transrussian Express is a tribute to London’s art scene, to show how you can be poor and foreign in London and still be accepted.”

Kinky-Kalinki Transrussian Express is a documentary film charting London’s art, music and club scene from 2000 to 2005, the length of time that Nina has lived here. “I have focused on one east London club in this film,” says Nina, “Rhythm Factory on Whitechapel road where it is possible to have live music, art on the walls and a club night all in one. East London is a buzzing area, that’s not to say that Richmond where I am based is not buzzing, but East London has a modern and contemporary feel.”
Old Vinyl.

Nina has exhibited her work in both solo and group shows and has begun to exhibit her work across Europe and overseas. In December 2003 Nina represented the UK at The Florence Bienniale and in November 2004 was invited to be Artist in Residence for Black History Month at the National Opera Studios in London. Other artistic residencies include River Walk at The OXO Tower and The Players Theatre in The West End.

Carol Cordrey will be in conversation with Nina on the 22nd of September at the Glass House Gallery and comments, “Jazz was once the music of yesteryear. Now, it is growing in popularity in cities the world over. Its powerful rhythm and improvisation have always appealed to performers with strong characters. Using instruments or voices, passion or pathos, they have used jazz to stir the human spirit. Nina Gruschwitz has an expressive personality, loves jazz and imbues all her work with a plethora of emotions. With brushes for instruments, this artist reinforces the contemporary impact of jazz. It is now seen and not just heard.”

Nina Gruschwitz’s exploration of Jazz and its influence on her art is to be exhibited at the Glass House gallery from the 13th of September.

The Glass House Gallery
2-3 Bull’s Head Passage, Leadenhall Market, London EC3, 13 Sept – 9 Oct
In Conversation: Artist talk with Carol Cordrey: Thu. 22 Sept 6 – 8pm
Special event: Kinky-Kalinki Transrussian Express: Wed 21 Sept 8pm-midnight
Rhythm Factory
16-18 Whitechapel Rd, London E1 1EW
info@thecynthiacorbettgallery.com
www.thecynthiacorbettgallery.com

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The two personalities of elaborate perfectionist and grounded working class man constantly challenge and compliment each other inside Salvetti. “My designs stand for durability, are factory orientated and practical,” he says. It is evident that romance factors strongly in his work. “I really like flowing fabrics, fluted skirts,” he demonstrates by gracefully tracing the red embroidered spider silhouettes on Anna, his girlfriend’s, thigh.”My designs are directly about me, and not so much about outside influences. I came here to be inspired by Europe.” Are you? “No.” And a chuckle. “My inspirations are from myself, my past, my identity.” “The process of path-choosing, in every aspect, is an evolving process. I’m a Buddhist, I follow the Buddha’s lead, but if one direction doesn’t work out then I take another route which may also be suggested by his teachings. He’s a guide, not a god.”

Salvetti’s designs are usually in tough denim edge functionality with sexy cuts, zips and panelling. His clean lined collections come complete with thoughtful touches. “Do you know why I put pockets on all my garments for girls? Because I heard once the reason women’s clothes often don’t have them is so they can be subservient to men.” Like a true Aussie bloke, nature is a source of wonder. Insects are a widely exploited theme, “the preying mantis stares up the twig at the beautiful butterfly, but maybe bats and skulls next,” explains Salvetti. The dark side rears its scaly back again and Salvetti’s duality flicks between vulnerability and creative excitement; white, soft, excessive fabric and bats and death. , but he has proved himself so he can explore and amalgamate anyway he wishes. A globe of ideas spin behind Salvetti’s tranquil sea green eyes. The two sides of his past work for prominence; gentle white concepts versus gothic teddy boy. His creations tread the line between delicate art and tough streetwear.Victor is unique, so are his garments.

For further information: indohot@hotmail.com
Caroline Healey
Photo Richard Hübner

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Ismail Kadare, Albanian writer of broad international reputation who has been living in France, has won the first ever Man Booker International Prize recently. He has received the prize of £60,000 and a trophy at the Award Ceremony on 27 June 2005 in Edinburgh.

Kadare was born in 1936 in Gjirokaster near the Greek border in the south of Albania. He studied first at the University of Tirana, and then in Moscow, at the Gorky Institute for World Literature, a training school for writers and critics. Returning home in 1960 after his country broke off relations with the Soviet Union, he worked first as a journalist and also published his first poems. He then wrote a short story, which he redrafted several times before it was published as his first novel, The General of the Dead Army, which made his name in Albania. He was then able to become a full-time writer. He also served as editor of a literary review, Les Lettres Albanaises, published simultaneously in Albanian and in French.

He had begun his literary career in the 1950s as a poet with verse collections such as the modest Frymezimet djaloshare (Youthful inspiration, 1954) and Enderrimet (Dreams,1957) which gave proof not only of his ‘youthful inspiration’ but also of talent and poetic originality. His influential Shekulli im (My century, 1961) helped set the pace for renewal in Albanian verse. Perse mendohen keto male (What are these mountains thinking about, 1964) is one of the clearest expressions of Albanian self-image under the gruesome years of the Hoxha dictatorship. Kadare’s poetry was less bombastic than previous verse and gained direct access to the hearts of the readers who saw in him the spirit of the times and who appreciated the diversity of his themes. He soon became widely admired among the youth of Albania for his verse. With candidness and sincerity, he contributed in particular to the evolution of love lyrics, a genre traditionally neglected in Albanian literature.

In the sixties, Kadare turned his creative energies increasingly to prose, of which he soon became the undisputed master and by far the most popular writer of the whole of Albanian literature. He was thus the most prominent representative of Albanian literature under the dictatorship of Enver Hoxha and, at the same time, its most talented adversary. His works were extremely influential throughout the seventies and eighties and, for many readers, he was the only ray of hope in the prison that was communist Albania.

Kadare was granted political asylum in France in October 1990. In support of him asylum, he said, “Dictatorship and authentic literature are incompatible… The writer is the natural enemy of dictatorship.”

His years of Parisian exile have been productive and have accorded him further success and recognition, both as a writer in Albanian and in French. He has published his collected works in ten thick volumes, each in an Albanian-language and a French-language edition, and has been honoured with membership in the prestigious Académie Française.

Kadare’s works are published in France by Editions Fayard. The first eleven volumes of his Complete Works are now in print in Albanian and in French. Translations of Kadare’s novels have been published in more than forty countries and for some years Ismail Kadare has been considered as one of the greatest writers of his epoch.

He is a writer who “maps a whole culture – its history, its passion, its folklore, its politics, its disasters. He is a universal writer in a tradition of storytelling that goes back to Homer,” said Professor John Carey, Chair of the judges. In response to winning the prize, Kadaré comments: “I am a writer from the Balkan Fringe, a part of Europe which has long been notorious exclusively for news of human wickedness – armed conflicts, civil wars, ethnic cleansing, and so on. My firm hope is that European and world opinion may henceforth realise that this region, to which my country, Albania, belongs, can also give rise to other kinds of news and be the home of other kinds of achievement, in the field of the arts, literature and civilisation.”

Other writers who were nominated for the International Booker Prize this year were Margaret Atwood (Canada), Saul Bellow (USA: passed away on 5 April 2005), Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Colombia), Gunter Grass (Germany), Milan Kundera (Czech), Stanislaw Lem (Poland), Doris Lessing (UK), Ian McEwan (UK), Naguib Mahfouz (Egypt), Tomas Eloy Martinez (Argentina), Kenzaburo Oe (Japan), Cynthia Ozick (USA), Philip Roth (USA), Muriel Spark (Scotland), Antonio Tabucchi (Italy), John Updike (USA), A.B. Yehoshua (Israel).

The following of Kadare’s titles have been translated into English: The General of the Dead Army, The Three Arched Bridge, Broken April, Chronicle in Stone, Durontine, The File on H, The Concert, The Palace of Dreams, Albanian Spring, The Pyramid, Elegy for Kosovo, Spring Flowers, Spring Frost, The Successor (forthcoming, January 2006), Agamemnon’s Daughter (forthcoming, date TBC)

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