The wedding [= Dasma]. Rendered into English by Ali Cungu.

Original illustrated wrappers. Cr. 8vo. (18,5 x 13 cm). Edition in English. 197, [3] p. Occasional fading on the margins and the spine. Otherwise, a very good copy. The first English edition, published in the same year as the original Albanian edition by the same publishing house, of Kadare's third novel, translated by Ali Cungu for propaganda purposes. The novel was first serialized in Nëntori magazine. Also, it was dramatized by BBC Radio London in 1969 under the title The Wedding and the Ghost. Described by Arshi Pipa as "the Albanian manifesto of socialist anti-realism," the novel served as a vehicle for Kadare to express his own truth. In the late 1960s, Albania underwent its own version of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, forcing writers to "go to the grassroots" and immerse themselves in the lives of the people. Kadare was among those affected, sent to the city of Berat in 1966 to live "with the people." Of his three previous novels, City Without Advertisements remained unpublished, The General of the Dead Army was criticized for failing to promote socialist ideals, and The Monster was banned outright. In this era of increasing political and ideological restrictions, writers and intellectuals faced grave danger if they strayed from the party line. Under pressure to depict a socialist utopia, Kadare found himself at a crossroads during his time at a textile factory in Berat, torn between abandoning literature or compromising and writing within the constraints of dogma. Against this backdrop, The Skin of the Drum took shape, based on his earlier unpublished story The Strange Wedding, though by the novel's completion, little of the original remained. First published in Nëntori under the title Lëkura e daulles (The Drum Skin), the novel appeared in book form a year later under the title Dasma (The Wedding). Its pages depict "New Albania", workers, construction sites, and re-education efforts fill the narrative, alongside themes of women's emancipation, the fight against arranged marriages, and the struggle against religion. Uncharacteristically festive in tone, the novel stands apart from Kadare's usual style yet remains infused with grotesque situations and sharp satire. Some scholars interpret it as a veiled critique of the communist regime, particularly in its portrayal of bureaucratic absurdities.