In her speech, Parliament Speaker, Elisa Spiropali, paid tribute to the figure and contribution of the writer Ismail Kadare to Albanian literature.

“Today, we gather not solely to honor the most extraordinary Albanian who has passed away, but to stand in solemn reflection before an icon who shall remain among us as a living testament to the intellect and spirit of the Albanian people. When a writer of the magnitude of Ismail Kadare passes away, the word is all that endures—and simultaneously, it becomes the essence of all that holds significance.”
“And it is almost impossible to find the right words for the master of the Albanian language who created an entire universe—at once familiar and unfamiliar, distant and close—a rare symbiosis between past and future, through memory and imagination. A character from one of his tragic novels would calmly say: ‘I came to speak, not to praise Ismail Kadare.’ Because Kadare does not need praise. He was and remains glory itself,” said Spiropali.

The Speaker of the Parliament stated that Kadare remains a symbol of dignity, independent thought, and an extraordinary effort to save the Albanian being through literature.

“In his life, as in his work, he sought no embellishments; he despised them! Calm in solitude, reserved in public, but always alive in word, Kadare remains a symbol of dignity, independent thought, and an extraordinary endeavor to preserve the Albanian essence through literature. By his Homeric merit, he remained the greatest lover of this land!

“In his work, death and perfection are inseparable. Here is what he wrote about both: ‘I felt that deathly fatigue overtaking me again as I recalled the epilogue of the book, which instead of giving me more reason to suspend it, made me think that if the matter were to be perfected—that is, to suffer—it would truly be a fate to suffer from this miracle. … That epilogue had both perfection and death, because such a fate occasionally conditions art: it cannot be perfect without being finished.’

“An astute observer of life, of the smallest and most human sensations: waking with a cup of coffee, a conversation left unfinished, a friendly disappointment, a new tie, or a silence that lasts longer than it should. In these everyday things, he built his profound universe, where readers were invited to coexist. There were antiquity and the future, the Albanian and the World, Albania and Europe!” said Spiropali.

According to Spiropali, Kadare “rightly believed that the world he constructed with words was perhaps more just, more credible, more true than the one we lived in.”

“Kadare created two such worlds: one personal, where he ruled as a god, often merciful, sometimes vengeful, but always human; and the other, which he gifted to humanity—a world of mythical proportions, yet grounded in reality, where Albania and Albanian identity found their highest form. In this literary universe, he traveled like a modern Dante, accompanied not only by his Beatrice—Helena—but also by memory, myth, identity, tragedy, and dream,” Spiropali expressed.
“Poet, prose writer, polemicist, essayist, epic, lyric, dramatic, tragic—devoted to talent and life both as an individual and for humanity—his work spans time back to antiquity and has a global geographical reach. Translated into dozens of languages, admired by millions of readers, a conqueror of some of the toughest challenges, a braver of the most dramatic circumstances, with a colossal volume of work, an incurable perfectionist of both form and content, he carved not only every paragraph and every sentence but down to every letter and every sound. He exalted human, national, intellectual, and European values during one of the darkest periods in our history, under the shadow of dictatorship, steadfast in his conviction that he proved and continues to prove through titanic work and genius talent that the path to Freedom—the only path to progress and prosperity—passes through reason, beauty, and passion. He was and remains The One. The deity soared high but inevitably bound us to our European roots,” said Spiropali.

Spiropali concluded her speech with the words: “Today, tomorrow, and forever, unforgettable in our hearts, in our minds, in our memory, our brightest. We struggle to find the words. We need you—rise and return from where you are, where you have gone temporarily.”
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