John Hodgson

John Hodgson, who was born in 1951, taught at the Universities of Pristina and Tirana after studying English literature at Cambridge and Newcastle

He has worked as a translator and interpreter at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague. He has translated five novels by Ismail Kadare, including The Traitor’s Niche, and several works by Fatos Lubonja, including Second Sentence and The False Apocalypse. He lives in London.

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Reading guide: A Dictator Calls by Ismail Kadare, translated by John Hodgson

Ismail Kadare’s novel is a fascinating meditation on Soviet Russia, authoritarianism, power structures and the relationship between writers and tyranny

An extract from A Dictator Calls by Ismail Kadare, translated by John Hodgson

In a fascinating combination of dreams and dossier facts, Ismail Kadare issues a meditation on Soviet Russia, authoritarianism, power structures and a period of great writers

Front cover of A Dictator Calls with images of the author and translator.

A Q&A with John Hodgson, translator of Ismail Kadare’s A Dictator Calls

The translator of A Dictator Calls told us about the totalitarianism literature that he drew inspiration from, his working process, and how translated fiction opens us up to marginal perspectives