Ismail Kadare was born on 28 January 1936 in Gjirokastër, Albania. He first studied at the Faculty of History and Philology at the University of Tirana and later at the Maxim Gorky Literature Institute in Moscow. During the communist regime, Kadare attacked totalitarianism and the doctrines of socialist realism with subtle allegories. His political allegory The Palace of Dreams was set in the Ottoman Empire's capital. Published in 1980, the book was almost immediately banned.

Kadare's novels draw on Balkan history and legends. They are obliquely ironic as a result of trying to withstand political scrutiny. Among his best known books are Chronicle in Stone (1977), Broken April (1978), and The Concert (1988), considered the best novel of the year 1991 by the French literary magazine Lire..

In 1990, Kadare claimed political asylum in France, issuing statements in favour of democratisation. During the ordeal, he stated that "dictatorship and authentic literature are incompatible. The writer is the natural enemy of dictatorship."

Some critics are ambiguous as to whether Kadare was a dissident or a conformist during the communist period, even though books such as The Palace of Dreams, are a brilliant denouncement of the tyranny and absurdity of the communist regime. In a political and literary environment completely and fiercely controlled by the state, Kadare's writing was, for many, the only view available that approached reality...let alone resistance.

When asked, whether he has ever claimed to be an Albanian Solzhenitsyn, Kadare has argued that such a role wasn't readily available under Hoxha's uniquely paranoid and insular regime. He has also been quoted as saying that he never claimed to be a dissident, that

"dissidence was a position no one could occupy, even for a few days, without facing the firing squad. On the other hand, my books themselves constitute a very obvious form of resistance."

In an interview on the Albanian Television with Blendi Fevziu in Opinion, a popular Albanian show, Kadare said that the question as to whether he was or not a dissident

"was absurd, since he was a writer and a private person free to have his opinions, not someone elected from the people, therefore he was not accountable to anybody and did not feel like explaining or justifying whether he was a dissident or not."

Kadare's works have been published in over forty countries and translated in over thirty languages. In English, his works have usually appeared as secondary translations from the French.

In 1996 he became a lifetime member of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences of France, where he replaced the philosopher Karl Popper. In 1992, he was awarded the Prix mondial Cino Del Duca, in 2005 he received the inaugural Man Booker International Prize. In 2009, Kadare was awarded the Prince of Asturias Award for Liturature. He has been a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature several times. In the same year he was awarded the Honorary Degree of Science in Social and Institutional Communication University of Palermo in Sicily.

The Independent characterizes him as follows:

He has been compared to Gogol, Kafka and Orwell. But Kadare's is an original voice, universal yet deeply rooted in his own soil.

The following Kadare novels have been translated into English (in chronological order of first publication):

• The General of the Dead Army (1963), ();
• The Monster (1965) (); shortly published in 1965 in the literary Nëntori magazine, the novel was soon censored and never appeared on the libraries. It was republished only 30 years later.
• The Wedding (1968), ();
• The Castle or The Siege (1970), ();
• Chronicle in Stone (1971), ();
• The Great Winter (1977) ();
• Broken April (1978), ()
• The Three-Arched Bridge (1978), ();
• On the Lay of the Knights (1979);
• Doruntine (1980), ();
• The Autobiography of the People in Verses (1980), ();
• The Palace of Dreams (1981), ();
• The Concert (1988), ();
• The File on H (1990) ();
• Albanian Spring (1991) ();
• The Pyramid, or La Pyramide (1992), ();
• Three Elegies for Kosovo (1998), ();
• Spring Flowers, Spring Frost (2000), ();
• The Successor (2003), ();
• Agamemnon's Daughter (2003), ().
• The Accident (2010), ().

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The complete works (except for the essays) of Ismail Kadare were published by Fayard, simultaneously in French and Albanian, between 1993 and 2004. Omitted from the list are the poetry and the short stories.

The dates of publication given here are those of the first publication in Albanian, unless stated otherwise. Kadare has often reworked his writings, and the newer editions may include significant differences from the original text.

• Le Général de l'armée morte (1963), adapted for the cinema in 1983 with Marcello Mastroianni
• La Peau de tambour (1967, under the Albanian title La noce)
• Chronique de la ville de pierre (1970)
• Les Tambours de la pluie (1970, under the Albanian title La citadelle)
• L'Hiver de la grande solitude (1973, also published as Le Grand Hiver), deals with the break with the Soviet Union in 1960
• Novembre d'une capitale (1975)
• Le Palais des rêves (1981)
• Le Crépuscule des dieux de la steppe (1978)
• La Commission des fêtes (1978)
• Le Pont aux trois arches (1978)
• La Niche de la honte (1978)
• Avril brisé (1980)
• Qui a ramené Doruntine? (1980)
• Clair de lune (1985)
• L'Année noire (1985)
• Le cortège de la noce s'est figé dans la glace (1985), set against the background of the repression of the demonstrations in 1981 in Kosovo
• Eschyle ou le grand perdant (1985, essay)
• Concert en fin de saison (1988, also published as the Le concert), edited in 1978-1981 but censored for seven years, deals with Sino-Albanian relations in the 1970s
• Le Dossier H. (1989)
• Le Monstre (1990), a short version had already appeared in 1965, but was soon censored
• Le Firman aveugle (1991), edited in 1984
• Invitation à l'atelier de l'écrivain (1991, essay)
• La Pyramide (1992)
• La Grande Muraille (1993)
• L'Ombre (1994), edited in 1984-86, appeared in French before being published in Albanian
• L'Aigle (1995)
• Spiritus (1996)
• Le Printemps Albanais (1997)
• Trois temps (1997)
• L'albanie, Visage des Balkans (1998)
• Trois chants funèbres pour le Kosovo (1998)
• La Ville sans enseignes (1998), written much earlier and edited in Moscow in 1959
• Mauvaise saison sur l'Olympe (1998, drama)
• L'Envol du migrateur (1999), edited in 1986
• Froides fleurs d'avril (2000)
• Il a fallu ce deuil pour se retrouver (2000), diary of the war of Kosovo
• Le Chevalier au faucon (2001)
• Histoire de l'Union des Écrivains albanais telle que reflétée dans le miroir d'une femme (2001)
• La Fille d'Agamemnon (2003), edited in 1985
• Le Successeur (2003)
• Vie, jeu et mort de Lul Mazrek (2003)
• Dante l'incontournable (2006)
• Hamlet, le prince impossible (2007)
• L'Accident (2008)
• Le Dîner de trop (2009)

« Les nuages nagent comme des enveloppes géantes, Comme des lettres, que s’enverraient les saisons. » in Poème d’automne.

« La vraie littérature a son propre calendrier, sa propre liberté qui n'a rien à voir avec la liberté extérieure. » Extract from an interview in 'Libération - 25 Octobre 1999