Agamemnon’s Daughter

From the winner of the first Man Booker Prize, Agamemnon’s Daughter forms part of a collection of three novels by Ismail Kadare which looks at fear as an instrument of power. Written in Albania and smuggled into France page by page in the 1980s, the novel follows one day in the life of a young unnamed journalist, attending a celebratory May Day parade.

Just before the parade kicks off, we find out that the journalist’s girlfriend has left him because her father is on the rise politically and disagrees with the relationship. The heart-broken man takes all the anxiety of his lover breaking up with him to the May Day celebrations as we follow his thoughts throughout the event. Reflecting on state repression in a communist country, he finds that the government that denies young love also denies humanity as each isolated citizen is set against the other.

The narrator’s thoughts then turn to Agamemnon, who sacrificed his daughter to win favour from the gods in his bloody cause.

It’s not the most immediately gripping of tales and I was tempted to skip a few pages, but nevertheless, there’s lots of dark humour as Kadare does what he knows best, pointing to the tyranny which distorts humanity.

By Zoe Christodoulides

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