Ismail Kadare is born on January 28, 1936, in museum city of Gjirokastra, Albania.
Studies languages and literature at the University of Tirana. Graduates in 1956 with a teacher's diploma.
Continues his studies at the Gorky Institute of World Literature in Moscow until relations between Albania and the Soviet Union sour in 1960.
Publishes poetry from the 50s. He depicts Albanian sentiment during Enver Hoxha's dictatorship, and is credited with introducing love lyrics to the Albanian canon.
The publication of Kadare's first novel, The General of the Dead Army, in 1963 marks the start of his peculiar celebrity as Albania's most prominent writer and the dictatorship's most visible adversary. He continues to write allegorical stories about his homeland, occasionally crossing the line. Kadare is a People's Assembly delegate in 1970, which allows him to travel freely and publish abroad. But after a politically satirical poem is released in 1975, Kadare is forbidden to publish for three years.
In October 1990 - two months before the fall of communism in Albania - Kadare goes into exile in France.