The latest addition to my website is Ismail Kadare‘s Darka e gabuar (The Fall of the Stone City). This novel is set in the Kadare’s home town of Gjirokastër. The main background is the various occupations endured by the city (and its neighbouring villages) during Kadare’s lifetime. We start with the Italians who invaded it in the 1930s. They were replaced by the Germans and then the frightful Soviet-influenced Communists took over. There are two main plot lines. There are two doctors – , both called Dr. Gurameto. They are not related and are known as Big Dr. Gurameto and Little Dr. Gurameto. The town expects them to be rivals but they actually get on well, though Big Dr G studied in Germany and Little Dr G in Italy. When the Germans take over, the head of the German troop turns out to be a former classmate of Big Dr G and Dr G invites him for dinner. But what really happened at the dinner? The Germans had taken hostages as they had been fired on but it seems that they were persuaded to release the hostages and not arrest a Jew. Everyone suspects that something happened they are not being told about. This will remain an issue throughout the book, even into the Communist era. Kadare condemns all three occupiers, particularly the Communists. who suspect the two doctors of having been involved in the Doctors’ plot, an imaginary plot with Stalin thinking doctors were trying to murder him and other senior Soviet officials. It is, as always, a clever story from Kadare.