PicoBlog

Although the book Broken April, set in 20th Century Albania seems far removed from 21st Century America, the themes—how the past controls the present and the human need for justice and significance—touch each of us. 

Broken April, published in 1978 by award-winning Albanian author Ismail Kadare, plunges the reader into a foreign world—the Albanian high plateau—shrouded in the cold, grey mist of a lingering winter. In the first scene we encounter 26 year old Gjorg Berisha waiting, rifle in hand, for the precise moment to take a shot. He must kill the man who killed his brother to fulfil his family’s expectations, the region’s cultural norms, and the tenants of the Kanun, an ancient law book whose authority supersedes the laws of the Albanian state. Having fulfilled this bloody obligation, Gjorg then becomes a marked man who will die like his victim after a 30-day truce. Although the Kanun offers alternatives to murder to avenge a death such as paying the deceased family a sum of money, the families have opted for vengeance. Gjorg’s body will be buried alongside 22 male kin murdered over the years in this feud. The Kryeqyqe family has lost the same number of loved ones. The vendetta began with the death of a stranger who stayed with Berisha family generations ago; no one is alive to remember it, but the feud keeps blood from drying.   

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