In the 1930s two Irish American scholars arrive in a small town in Northern Albania. They have come to record its oral storytellers and research the surviving tradition of spoken verse epics in the belief that this will crack the mysteries surrounding the authorship of the poems attributed to Homer. The town governor s wife, eager for diversion, organises a party in their honour and is soon indulging in romantic fantasies about the exciting newcomers. However, her husband, tipped off by the Minister, orders one of his men to follow the pair on the suspicion that they are foreign spies. Soon a stream of perplexing and floridly written reports is emanating from the inn where the two scholars and their unsuspected shadow are lodged. As his multi-layered narrative moves towards a concluding act of unexpected violence, Kadare provides a witty and engaging portrait of misguided nationalism and cultural misunderstanding.