At the beginning of the 20th century
The early 20th century was a period of maturity for Albanian literature. It was dominated by two churchmen and patriots: the Catholic priest Gjergj Fishta and the Orthodox bishop Fan Noli. Gjergj Fishta (1871-1940) was a churchman, politician and one of the great figures of Albanian literature, often referred to as the "poet of the Albanian nation". He was the first Albanian to be nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature. But the arrival of communism in the country in the mid-1940s sent him tumbling down the precipice of oblivion... Since 1989, he has fortunately regained a certain prestige. But why is he so well known? Because he is the author of Albania's most famous poem, Le Luth des hautes montagnes(Lahuta e Malcis), a patriotic epic of 17,000 verses. He is also the author of Les Guêpes du Parnasse (1907) and La Sieste des fées (1913).
As for Fan Noli (1882-1965), he was briefly Prime Minister, then driven out of the country by a coup d'état in 1924. During his American exile, he never stopped singing for Albanian patriots. In 1948, for example, he published a collection of poems, L'Album(Albumi).
Post-war literature
After the Second World War, despite censorship, the imprisonment of certain authors and the themes imposed by the regime (social progress, patriotism), a genuine literature managed to emerge. This is demonstrated by the works of Dritëro Agolli, Fatos Kongoli and Neshat Tozaj, all three of whom have been translated into French. Dritëro Agolli (1931-2017) still enjoys an immense reputation in the country. Despite his closeness to the Communist regime, he succeeded in bringing freshness to Albanian poetry, and in imposing novels such as Le Commissaire Memo (1974), filled with humor that is both popular and subtle. Works such as Je marche pensif (1987), Splendeur et Décadence du camarade Zulo (1990), L'Homme au canon (1994), Un grondement de vents lointains (1998) are also available in French..
Fatos Kongoli (b. 1944) waited until the fall of the dictatorship to start writing. His first novel, Le Paumé (1992), paints a cold, despairing portrait of Albania in the 1960s and 1970s. Other works include L'Ombre de l'autre, Le Dragon d'ivoire, Le Rêve de Damoclès and La Vie dans une boîte d'allumettes
As for Neshat Tozaj (b. 1943), a former criminology expert, he became famous with his crime novel Les Couteaux, in which he denounced the exactions of the Sigurimi as early as 1989.
Contemporary authors
More recently, we should mention Dashnor Kokonozi (b. 1951), who is deeply committed to the free press and, thanks to his work as a journalist, has denounced his country's crooked politicians. He was also one of the first Albanian authors to tackle the theme of the 1997 civil war in his novel Terre brûlée, published in France in 2014. Prior to this, he wrote works such as Le Lit de Procuste (1989), a hidden critique of the Stalinist regime.
It's also worth taking a few minutes to look at Bessa Myftiu. Born in Tirana in 1963, this author, who holds a doctorate and teaches at the University of Geneva, has also worked in the world of books and cinema. Her works include Ma légende, with a preface by Ismaïl Kadaré, the poetry collection À toi, si jamais... (2001) and Vers l'impossible (2016), Dix-sept ans de mensonge (2017) and La Dame de compagnie (2018).
Ylljet Aliçka was born in Tirana in 1951. With a doctorate in didactic science, he has been Albania's ambassador to France (2007-2013), Monaco (2011-2013), Portugal (2008-2010) and also to Unesco (2008-2011). In parallel, he has written short stories and novels, some of which are available in French: the collection Les Slogans de pierre (1999), the novels Les Étrangères (2010), Chronique des villes de provinces (2013), La Valse du bonheur (2018).
Focus on Ismaïl Kadaré
Ismaïl Kadaré, the most French of Albanians, was born in 1936. In 1953, just out of secondary school, he began to write, although he did not publish immediately. He studied in Moscow, but had to return home when Albania broke away from the Soviet Union in 1960. He then became a journalist. His first novel, The General of the Dead Army, was published in 1963. Ismaïl Kadaré was an immediate success in Albania, then abroad. The novel was also adapted for the cinema in 1983 by Luciano Tovoli. In 1963, he published his second novel, Le Monstre, which met with a different fate. The text was strongly criticized and even banned. It was not published until 1990. In it, the author recounts the Tirana of the time, drawing parallels with the siege of Troy.
During the Cultural Revolution, the Albanian regime forced authors to live close to the people. Thus, Ismaïl Kadaré went to live for two years (1967-1969) in the mountains in the south of the country. He continued to write. In 1967, he published Noces , which he considered to be his only novel to correspond to the dictates of socialist realism. Three years later, he evoked the resistance in his war novel Tambours de la pluie , and in 1975, after the publication of the poem Les Pachas rouges, he was censored, accused of inciting rebellion, and punished with a period of hard labor. He continued to write anti-totalitarian novels, including The Palace of Dreams in 1981. Once again facing criticism and accused of being an enemy of the regime, he was no longer allowed to publish in his own country, and requested asylum in France, which he obtained in 1990. From then on, between 1993 and 2014, he was published by Fayard, in French and Albanian. His other works include Avril brisé (1980), Le Dossier H (1989), La Pyramide (1992) and, more recently, L'Accident (2008), Le Dîner de trop (2009), La Discorde (2013), La Poupée (2015) and Matinée au Café Rostand (2017).
Ismaïl Kadaré is recognized as one of the world's greatest contemporary writers. He has been awarded numerous prizes, including the Man-Booker International Prize (2005), the Princess of Asturias Prize for Literature (2009), the Jerusalem Prize (2015), the Park Kyung-ni Prize and the Neustadt Prize (2019). He has also been nominated several times for the Nobel Prize, although he has never received it. His writing is marked by his struggle against totalitarianism, a struggle that will never leave him. He draws inspiration from the history of his country and the Balkans, and knows how to criticize totalitarianism against a backdrop of irony in his double-edged stories.
