# Agamemnon's Daughter > Mediated Wiki article. Canonical URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Agamemnon's_Daughter > Markdown URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Agamemnon's_Daughter.md > Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agamemnon's_Daughter > Source revision: 1335741370 > License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) 2003 novella by Ismail Kadare Agamemnon's Daughter First edition Author Ismail Kadare Original title Vajza e Agamemnonit Language Albanian Genre historical fiction, political fiction Publisher Shtëpia Botuese "55" Publication date 2003 Publication place Albania Published in English 2006 Pages 110 ISBN 978-1611451085 Followed by The Successor ***Agamemnon's Daughter*** ([Albanian](/source/Albanian_language): *Vajza e Agamemnonit*) is a 2003 [novella](/source/Novella) by the Albanian writer and inaugural [International Man Booker Prize](/source/Man_Booker_International_Prize) winner [Ismail Kadare](/source/Ismail_Kadare). It is the first part of a [diptych](/source/Diptych) of which the second and longer part is *[The Successor](/source/The_Successor_(Kadare))*. It is considered by many critics to be one of the author's greatest works. ## Background [Ismail Kadare](/source/Ismail_Kadare) Written in 1985, during the last years of the stalinist regime in [Albania](/source/Albania), together with *[The Shadow](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Shadow_(Kadare_novel)&action=edit&redlink=1)* and *[A Bird Flying South](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=A_Bird_Flying_South&action=edit&redlink=1)*, *Agamemnon's Daughter* was one of the three [literary manuscripts](/source/Manuscript) Ismail Kadare managed to smuggle out of Albania just after the death of [Enver Hoxha](/source/Enver_Hoxha), and with the help of [French](/source/France) [editor](/source/Editor) and [translator](/source/Translator) [Claude Durand](/source/Claude_Durand). The first pages of the three manuscripts were masked as Albanian translations of works by [Siegfried Lenz](/source/Siegfried_Lenz), before Durand travelled to [Tirana](/source/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](/source/Violinist), Tedi Papavrami, from the original and unrevised manuscripts, *Agamemnon's Daughter* first appeared in [French](/source/French_language) in 2003, but only after Kadare had already authored its [sequel](/source/Sequel), *[The Successor](/source/The_Successor_(Kadare))*.[1] ## Plot The novella is told through the perspective of an unnamed television journalist with somewhat liberal views who is unexpectedly invited to the annual [May Day Parade](/source/International_Workers'_Day#Soviet_Union_and_Eastern_Bloc_under_socialist_governments) – 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 [Joyce's](/source/James_Joyce) *[Ulysses](/source/Ulysses_(novel))*, the novella is an [internal monologue](/source/Stream_of_consciousness_(narrative_mode)) 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](/source/Inferno_(Dante)), in which victims of the regime are serially encountered"[2] 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 [Graves'](/source/Robert_Graves) *[Greek Myths](/source/The_Greek_Myths)* and the one tempting him to liken Suzana's destiny (as well as the destiny of [Stalin](/source/Stalin)'s eldest son [Yakov Dzhugashvili](/source/Yakov_Dzhugashvili)) to the one of [Agamemnon](/source/Agamemnon)'s daughter, [Iphigeneia](/source/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](/source/Agamemnon), [Stalin](/source/Stalin), [Hoxha](/source/Enver_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](/source/Kafka) and [Orwell](/source/George_Orwell)",[3] the diptych *Agamemnon's Daughter*/*[The Successor](/source/The_Successor_(Kadare))* is considered by Kadare's French publisher, [Fayard](/source/Fayard)'s editor [Claude Durand](/source/Claude_Durand), "one of the finest and most accomplished of all Ismail Kadare's works to date".[1] Describing it as "laceratingly direct" in its criticism of the totalitarian regime, in a longer overview of Kadare's works, [James Wood](/source/James_Wood_(critic)) 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".[2] ## See also - [Albanian literature](/source/Albanian_literature) ## References 1. ^ [***a***](#cite_ref-AgamemnonsDaughter_1-0) [***b***](#cite_ref-AgamemnonsDaughter_1-1) Durand, Claude (2006). "About Agamemnon's Daughter: Adapted from the Publisher's Preface to the French Edition". In Kadare, Ismail (ed.). [*Agamemnon's Daughter: A Novella and Stories*](https://archive.org/details/agamemnonsdaught00kada). Translated by Bellos, David. Arcade Publishing. pp. ix–xii. [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [978-1-559-70788-6](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-1-559-70788-6). 1. ^ [***a***](#cite_ref-NewYorker_2-0) [***b***](#cite_ref-NewYorker_2-1) Woods, James (20 December 2010). ["Chronicles And Fragments: The Novels of Ismail Kadare"](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/12/20/chronicles-and-fragments). *[The New Yorker](/source/The_New_Yorker)*. Retrieved 17 July 2017. 1. **[^](#cite_ref-3)** Tonkin, Boyd (22 February 2008). ["Paperbacks: Agamemnon's Daughter, by Ismail Kadare"](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/paperbacks-agamemnons-daughter-by-ismail-kadare-785330.html). *[The Independent](/source/The_Independent)*. [Archived](https://web.archive.org/web/20170918201645/http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/paperbacks-agamemnons-daughter-by-ismail-kadare-785330.html) from the original on 18 September 2017. Retrieved 17 July 2017. v t e Works by Ismail Kadare The General of the Dead Army (1963) The Siege (1970) Chronicle in Stone (1971) The Great Winter (1977) Twilight of the Eastern Gods (1978) The Traitor's Niche (1978) The Three-Arched Bridge (1978) Broken April (1980) The Ghost Rider (1980) The File on H. (1981) The Palace of Dreams (1981) The Concert (1988) The Blinding Order (1991) The Pyramid (1992) Spiritus (1996) Elegy for Kosovo (1998) Spring Flowers, Spring Frost (2000) Agamemnon's Daughter (2003) The Successor (2003) The Fall of the Stone City (2008) A Girl in Exile (2009) The Doll (2015) Authority control databases Open Library --- Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Agamemnon's Daughter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agamemnon's_Daughter) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agamemnon's_Daughter?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.