The world-renowned Albanian novelist Ismail Kadare has died at the age of 88

TIRANA, Albania (AP) — Renowned Albanian novelist Ismail Kadare has died after being rushed to a hospital in Tirana, his publisher said Monday. He was 88 years old.

Kadare has long been mentioned as a possible candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

“Albania and the Albanians have lost their genius of letters, their spiritual emancipator, the Balkans (lost) the poet of its myths, Europe and the world (lost) one of the most famous representatives of modern literature,” Albanian President Bajram Begaj said in a statement issued by his office.

The editor of Onufri Publishing House, Bujar Hudhri, said that the renowned author died on Monday morning. A nurse at the hospital, who spoke on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to speak to the media, said he was taken to the emergency room after suffering cardiac arrest.

Kadare became internationally recognized after his novel The General of the Dead Army was published in 1963, when Albania was still ruled by the communist government of the late dictator Enver Hoxha.

Kadare fled Albania for France in the fall of 1990, just a few months before the fall of the communist regime following student protests the previous December. He lived in Paris and had recently returned to Tirana.

Last year, French President Emmanuel Macron awarded him the title of Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor during a visit by the French president to the Albanian capital. France previously also made him a foreign associate of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences, as well as commander of the Legion of Honor.

Kadare received a number of international awards for his works, which included more than 80 novels, plays, screenplays, poems, essays and short story collections translated into 45 languages.

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Semini reported from Bari, Italy

Vlasov Sulaj and Llazar Semini, The Associated Press