Ismail Kadare was Albania's grand man of letters. He died in 2024. Over the course of his long career he wrote at least 80 novels, plays, essays and story collections, dominating the foreign-language section of the bookshop in Tirana's central square by sheer volume of output. Mr Kadare has since been eclipsed internationally by Lea Ypi as the world's best-known Albanian writer.
One of the pleasures of reading old letters is the knowledge that they need no answer.