ABSTRACT
One of Ismail Kadare's earliest pieces, The Princess Argjiro, takes as its theme the origins of the town of Gjirokastra. The work was denounced and an official reader's report was commissioned. In a document dated 30 May 1958, Lefter Dilo, teacher and author of a monograph on Kadare's home town, points out the historical and ideological errors. Kadare's earliest stories express the interests and concerns of a new generation in conflict with the old. The modernization of the socialist regime was achieved at the cost of extensive limitations on personal freedom. This was not the modernity which lay at the heart of existentialism, and it was not long before the young Kadare began to stand out. Kadare began The City without Signs in Tirana, and worked on it at the Gorki Institute in 1959 where he tried composing directly onto audio tape as an experiment in modern composition, before finishing it in writing after returning to Albania in late 1960.
