Hudhri has included 7 decades of creativity in 7 volumes and considers it the fulfillment of a 30-year dream. The first copy of Kadare’s complete work is presented today in the “Albania” hall in Turin. Albania has dedicated its presence at this international book fair to Kadare as the most popular Albanian writer beyond Albanian-speaking borders.

The publisher said that the idea for a new seven-volume version of the complete work was discussed since November 28, 2012, when Kadare browsed the personal archive for the first time, in his apartment in Tirana. Even the seventh-volume version was chosen by the author himself. Initially, it was thought that the entire work of twenty volumes would be summarized in six volumes, while the seventh would carry the unpublished archive. But, Kadare was rather selective with his unpublished creativity, as he would put it years later: “My novels had been something wrong, as long as they had been born outside the time allowed for literature.”

Kadare singled out a creation from the archive which he baptized as the genesis of his literary work. It was the novella “In unknown soil”, which on the first page bears the date October 8, 1953, coinciding this year with seven decades of the author’s creativity. Since the chronological criterion has been followed for this publication, the first volume opens precisely with this novella.

The current seven-volume edition is the most complete published so far and presents Kadare’s creativity in its integral size, remaining forever the final and reference version for all subsequent publications in Albanian and foreign languages./p.s./