Thousands of Albanians gathered in Tirana on Wednesday to pay tribute to their country's best-known novelist Ismail Kadare, who died on Monday after a heart attack.

BELGRADE (Reuters) -Ismail Kadare, an acclaimed Albanian novelist and playwright who defied his country's longtime Communist rulers through his writing, has died in a Tirana hospital after having a heart attack, local television cited his editor as saying. He was 88.

Renowned Albanian novelist Ismail Kadare has died after being rushed to a hospital in the country's capital, Tirana. He was 88.

Ismail Kadare, the Albanian novelist and poet who single-handedly wrote his isolated Balkan homeland onto the map of world literature, creating often dark, allegorical works that obliquely criticized the country’s totalitarian state,

The Albanian literary giant was best known for works including "Broken April" and "The General of the Dead Army", chronicling life under communist dictator Enver Hoxha by way of allegorical stories.

El renombrado novelista albanés Ismail Kadare murió después de ser trasladado de urgencia a un hospital en Tirana, informó el lunes su editorial.