Che cosa e successo la notte del 13 dicembre nella camera da letto del "successore" - l''uomo designato a prendere il posto del tiranno del popolo albanese -, il cui cadavere e stato scoperto all''alba colpito da una pallottola in pieno petto? Questo romanzo di Kadare e ispirato al piu tenebroso enigma della storia dell''Albania contemporanea: la morte misteriosa del delfino del dittatore comunista, trasparente allusione a Enver Hoxha. Chi ha ucciso il successore e perche? Partendo da un avvenimento reale al quale conferisce dimensione universale, l''autore mette a nudo la psicologia del tiranno e le trame dei regimi totalitari attraverso una vicenda ora paradossale, ora cupamente quotidiana.
1958. In a dorm room in Moscow, a young writer is woken by the sound of angry voices on the radio. Through the fog of a hangover he hears the news that a novel called Doctor Zhivago has earned its author the Nobel Prize. There is uproar. The author, Boris Pasternak, faces exile, the press hound him and demand that he refuse the award. A few days earlier the young writer found a copy of this book - could those simple pages really be so dangerous?
When a girl is found dead with a signed copy of Rudian Stefa's latest book in her possession, the author finds himself summoned for an interview by the Party Committee. Unable to guess what transgression he has committed Rudian goes fearfully to meet his interrogators. He has never met the girl in question but he remembers signing the book. As the influence of a paranoid regime steals up on him, Rudian finds himself swept along on a surreal quest to discover what really happened to the mysterious girl to whom he wrote the dedication - to Linda B.
