Thursday, June 08, 2006

Don Quixote of the Balkans

Ismael Kadare on the use and abuse of Don Quixote in Balkan politics. From Eurozine.
...Don Quixote was translated in Albanian by the bishop of Albania. This bishop was at war with the next king of Albania. The bishop tried to defeat the monarch. To give himself courage, he translated Hamlet and then Macbeth, and lo and behold, he really did manage to defeat the king. Later, the king defeated the bishop and the situation was overthrown; extremely upset, the bishop went into isolation and started to translate Don Quixote....

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Macbeth was a remarkably poor choice for a person planning to overthrow a king.