The Pyramid

　　A timeless tale of tyranny and terror—a tour de force of Kafkaesque paranoia and Orwellian prophecy.

　　Egypt in the twenty-sixth century BC. The young pharaoh Cheops wants to forgo the construction of a pyramid in his honor, but his court sages hasten to persuade him otherwise. The pyramid, they tell him, is not a tomb but a paradox, designed to appease the masses by oppressing them. It is a symbol of nothing, a useless and infinite project designed to waste the country’s wealth and keep security and prosperity, ever the fonts of sedition, constantly at bay. And so the greatest pyramid in the world has ever seen begins to rise.

　　Rumors multiply. A secret police is formed. Conspiracies — real and imagined — swirl around the rising edifice. The most drastic purges follow. By the time the first stone is laid, Cheops’s subjects are terrified enough to yield to his most murderous whims. Each time one of the massive stones is hoisted into place, dozens of men are crushed, and there are tens of thousands of stones. . . .

 

作者簡介

　　Ismail Kadare, born in 1936 in the Albanian mountain town of Gjirokaster near the Greek border, is Albania’s best-known poet and novelist. He has lived in France since 1990, following his decision to seek asylum. From 1986, under the Communist regime, Mr. Kadare’s work was smuggled out of Albania by his French publisher, Editions Fayard, and stored in safe keeping for later publication. Translations of his novels have since been published in more than forty countries. In addition to Broken April, Ivan R. Dee also publishes his novels Doruntine and The General of the Dead Army. Mr. Kadare is the winner of the inaugural Man Booker International Prize 2005.