Broken April

Broken April crafts a cautionary message about the prolonged damage normalized violence causes. To address and build this message, Kadare employs multiple perspectives, each one shining a new light on the horrors of violence. Gjorg offers a close view of the violence perpetuated by the blood feuds. He partakes in the feuds directly, and Kadare gives the reader a visceral account of a killing. Although the bloods feuds have been practiced for hundreds of years Gjorg’s people his people, the experience sickens him: “He felt like vomiting, and he told himself several times that it must be because of the blood. A few moments later he was fleeing down the deserted road, almost at a run” (9). Gjorg was born and raised in the High Plateau, but he is a complex human being, and immediately the experience of killing Zef has a dramatic effect on his body and mind.

Gjorg spends the rest of the novel mulling over what he did, examining what good, if any, his violence brought. By Chapter 5, after seeing Zef’s grave, Gjorg sees no point: “All that torment, sleepless nights, the silent struggle with his father, his own hesitations, his brooding, his suffering, had brought about nothing more than these meaningless bare stones” (157-58).