A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice “Erotic, paranoiac and lightly fantastical.” — The Wall Street Journal “Ismail Kadare's readers are astonished every year when the Nobel committee overlooks him. . . . A Girl in Exile , published in Albanian in 2009, may rekindle the worldwide hopes.” — The New York Times Book Review During the bureaucratic machinery of Albania’s 1945–1991 dictatorship, playwright Rudian Stefa is called in for questioning by the Party Committee. A girl—Linda B.—has been found dead, with a signed copy of his latest book in her possession. He soon learns that Linda’s family, considered suspect, was exiled to a small town far from the capital. Under the influence of a paranoid regime, Rudian finds himself swept along on a surreal quest to discover what really happened to Linda B. “At a time when parts of the world are indulging nostalgia for communism, Kadare’s novel confronts the infuriating impossibility of art in an autocratic, anti–individualist system.” — The Washington Post “ A Girl in Exile confirms Kadare to be the best writer at work today who remembers—almost aggressively so, refusing to forget—European totalitarianism.” — The New Republic