{{Short description|2003 novella by Ismail Kadare}} {{Use dmy dates|date=May 2021}} {{Infobox book | name = Agamemnon's Daughter | title_orig = Vajza e Agamemnonit | translator = | image = File:Vajza e Agamemnonit.jpg | image_size = 220px | border = yes | caption = First edition | author = [[Ismail Kadare]] | country = [[Albania]] | language = [[Albanian language|Albanian]] | genre = [[historical fiction]], [[political fiction]] | publisher = Shtëpia Botuese "55" | pub_date = 2003 | english_pub_date = 2006 | media_type = | pages = 110 | isbn = 978-1611451085 | oclc = | followed_by = [[The Successor (Kadare)|The Successor]] }} '''''Agamemnon's Daughter''''' ({{langx|sq|Vajza e Agamemnonit}}) is a 2003 [[novella]] by the Albanian writer and inaugural [[Man Booker International Prize|International Man Booker Prize]] winner [[Ismail Kadare]]. It is the first part of a [[diptych]] of which the second and longer part is ''[[The Successor (Kadare)|The Successor]]''. It is considered by many critics to be one of the author's greatest works.
==Background==
[[File:Ismail Kadare.jpg|190px|thumb|right|[[Ismail Kadare]]]] Written in 1985, during the last years of the stalinist regime in [[Albania]], together with ''[[The Shadow (Kadare novel)|The Shadow]]'' and ''[[A Bird Flying South]]'', ''Agamemnon's Daughter'' was one of the three [[manuscript|literary manuscripts]] Ismail Kadare managed to smuggle out of Albania just after the death of [[Enver Hoxha]], and with the help of [[France|French]] [[editor]] and [[translator]] [[Claude Durand]]. The first pages of the three manuscripts were masked as Albanian translations of works by [[Siegfried Lenz]], before Durand travelled to [[Tirana]] to get the remainder of the novels and successfully deposit them in a safe at the Banque de la Cité in Paris. Translated by the famous Albanian [[violinist]], Tedi Papavrami, from the original and unrevised manuscripts, ''Agamemnon's Daughter'' first appeared in [[French language|French]] in 2003, but only after Kadare had already authored its [[sequel]], ''[[The Successor (Kadare)|The Successor]]''.<ref name=AgamemnonsDaughter>{{cite book |last=Durand |first=Claude |editor-last=Kadare |editor-first=Ismail |title=Agamemnon's Daughter: A Novella and Stories |publisher=Arcade Publishing |date=2006 |translator-last=Bellos |translator-first=David |pages=ix–xii |chapter=About Agamemnon's Daughter: Adapted from the Publisher's Preface to the French Edition |isbn=978-1-559-70788-6 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/agamemnonsdaught00kada }}</ref>
==Plot== The novella is told through the perspective of an unnamed television journalist with somewhat liberal views who is unexpectedly invited to the annual [[International Workers' Day#Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc under socialist governments|May Day Parade]] – aimed almost exclusively at glorifying the leader of the country – shortly after his girlfriend Suzana, daughter of the leader's designated successor, breaks up her relationship with him, citing his possible unsuitability and the fact it may tarnish her father's reputation. Much like [[James Joyce|Joyce's]] ''[[Ulysses (novel)|Ulysses]]'', the novella is an [[Stream of consciousness (narrative mode)|internal monologue]] chronicling the thoughts of the narrator about Suzana and the people he encounters as he walks to the stands of the stadium. As such, it functions as "a portfolio of sketches of human ruination – a brief [[Inferno (Dante)|Inferno]], in which victims of the regime are serially encountered"<ref name=NewYorker>{{cite magazine |last= Woods |first= James |date= 20 December 2010 |title= Chronicles And Fragments: The Novels of Ismail Kadare |url= http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/12/20/chronicles-and-fragments |magazine= [[The New Yorker]] |access-date= 17 July 2017}}</ref> by the narrator.
As is usually the case with Kadare, the destinies of some of these people – none of which have names, but initials – are juxtaposed to an ancient Balkan tale, introduced first as an elucidatory comment on the rise of G. Z., a sycophantic figure who survived several purges in manners unknown to many. The tale-leitmotif recounts the story of the Bald Man who was saved from Hell by an eagle, at the price of his own meat; when he reached the heavens, he was nothing but a skeleton.
However, the overarching analogy is the one the narrator uncovers while reading [[Robert Graves|Graves']] ''[[The Greek Myths|Greek Myths]]'' and the one tempting him to liken Suzana's destiny (as well as the destiny of [[Stalin]]'s eldest son [[Yakov Dzhugashvili]]) to the one of [[Agamemnon]]'s daughter, [[Iphigeneia]] – all victims of "a tyrant's cynical ploy", one which, instead of humane and exemplary, served only to the cause of giving the tyrants – [[Agamemnon]], [[Stalin]], [[Enver Hoxha|Hoxha]], or the designated successor in this case – "the right to demand the life of anyone else" in the future.
==Reception== "Fusing the moods of [[Kafka]] and [[George Orwell|Orwell]]",<ref>{{cite magazine |last= Tonkin |first= Boyd |date= 22 February 2008 |title= Paperbacks: Agamemnon's Daughter, by Ismail Kadare |url= https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/paperbacks-agamemnons-daughter-by-ismail-kadare-785330.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170918201645/http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/paperbacks-agamemnons-daughter-by-ismail-kadare-785330.html |archive-date=2017-09-18 |url-access=limited |url-status=live |magazine= [[The Independent]] |access-date= 17 July 2017}}</ref> the diptych ''Agamemnon's Daughter''/''[[The Successor (Kadare)|The Successor]]'' is considered by Kadare's French publisher, [[Fayard]]'s editor [[Claude Durand]], "one of the finest and most accomplished of all Ismail Kadare's works to date".<ref name=AgamemnonsDaughter /> Describing it as "laceratingly direct" in its criticism of the totalitarian regime, in a longer overview of Kadare's works, [[James Wood (critic)|James Wood]] calls ''Agamemnon’s Daughter'' "perhaps [Kadare's] greatest book" and considers it, along with ''The Successor'', "surely one of the most devastating accounts ever written of the mental and spiritual contamination wreaked on the individual by the totalitarian state".<ref name=NewYorker />
==See also== *[[Albanian literature]]
==References== {{reflist}}
{{Ismail Kadare}}
{{Authority control}}
[[Category:2003 novels]] [[Category:21st-century Albanian novels]] [[Category:Historical novels]] [[Category:Novels by Ismail Kadare]] [[Category:Novels set in Albania]] [[Category:Iphigenia]]