TIRANA, July 3 /ATA/ The well-known Arberesh academic, Matteo Mandala, in his farewell message for Ismail Kadare, has portrayed Kadare as a dear friend of the Arbëresh people.
“All my colleagues adore Kadare’s art; some people had the chance to know him personally in 2009 during the solemn ceremony of bestowing the Laurea Honoris Causa title to him by the University of Palermo. Right then and there in that auditorium of prominent Italian professors and researchers, we saw the modest but significant tribute to the great Albanian writer materialize,” Mandala writes, recalling this historic moment.
The Arbëresh academic said that Kadare was a dear friend and great connoisseur of the Arbëresh people and their cultural and literary history. According to him, the evaluations that Kadare dedicated to Jeronim De Rada and Scanderbeg, whose historical image he connected almost instinctively with the Arbëresh people of Italy, will remain immortal.
Ismail Kadare has made trips to Calabria and Sicily. His visits met with great enthusiasm. Many Arbëresh wanted to meet him, shake his hand and express their gratitude.
For academician Mandala, the visit he made to Piana degli Albanesi is unforgettable, when, accompanied by his wife Helena and niece Doruntina, those present perceived in Kadare’s speech the feeling of the magical embodiment of literary truth.
“The work of Ismail Kadare is the real temple where he rests today. Kadare often said that for decades he had lived as a half-dead among the living: if we literary scholars succeed in our work, I can confidently say that in the future Kadare will be the most alive among the dead”, said Matteo Mandala.
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