The Story Archive

The Palace of Dreams

Ismail Kadare · 1981 CE · Novel · Albanian · Contemporary

A young man from a great Ottoman-Albanian house is placed in the ministry that collects the dreams of every subject of the empire, sorts them by the sackload, and sends the one dream a week that may bear on the sultan's fate up to Interpretation. He learns the corridors faster than he learns what the work is for, and his own family's epic keeps surfacing in the files. Albania banned it within weeks, which Kadare had every reason to expect.

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Attributes

Genre
AllegoryPoliticalPsychological
Theme
Power & CorruptionIdentity & SelfIsolation & AlienationFreedom vs Fate
Archetype (Jung / Campbell)
EverymanInnocent
Plot structure
Labyrinth PlotAllegoryRise and Fall
Symbol / motif
The DreamThe LabyrinthThe Book / Manuscript
Conflict
vs Societyvs Self
Mode / tone
AllegoricalIronic
Culture / tradition
Albanian

Closest analogues