Books On Warriors And Sieges

By Alan Cheuse

Published April 7, 2009 at 3:00 PM CDT

Two newly published works of fiction take us deep into the lives of warriors from the other side of the Mediterranean.

Laleh Khadivi's The Age of Orphans tells the story of a young Kurdish boy forced to join the Iranian army.

The Siege, by Man Booker Prize Winner Ismail Kadare, gives us the tale of a medieval siege by a Turkish army of a Christian citadel in Kadare's native Albania.

Corrected: April 9, 2009 at 11:41 AM CDT

We said the book "The Siege" was "published in Albania in 1970, then translated into French and published in Paris in 1994, and now translated into English by David Bellos." In fact, English translations were published in 1974 and 1980.

Alan Cheuse

Alan Cheuse died on July 31, 2015. He had been in a car accident in California earlier in the month. He was 75. Listen to NPR Special Correspondent Susan Stamburg's retrospective on his life and career.

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