Literature and trauma under a totalitarian regime: the Ismail Kadaré case

The present article is an attempt to bring together psychoanalysis, genre theory and the study of the literary forms developed under the socialist regime and in traumatic conditions in Albania, where the authors repressed by the regime had no chance to publish until after its collapse. It does so by delving into the works of Ismail Kadaré, who – although not directly repressed – wrote his works under a totalitarian regime which, after importing uncritically socialist realism from the Soviet Union, did not experience the ‘thaw’ experienced by other countries in the socialist camp.