TIRANA, Sept. 11 – Albanian writer and journalist Fatos Lubonja has been awarded the Dutch Prince Claus Award for his honest and lucid literary accounts of cruel episodes in Albania’s recent history.
Lubonja was one of the eleven recipients of the Prince Claus Awards for outstanding achievements in the field of culture and development among a total of 103 nominations.
“Fatos Lubonja is awarded for his honest and lucid literary accounts of crucial episodes in Albania’s recent history; for maintaining his intellectual integrity and independence in extreme circumstances; for continuously fighting for democracy, human rights, free speech and the right to tell his country’s story in a context where that freedom remains fragile; for broadening the scope of public debate and providing platforms for other critical voices; and for fearlessly speaking truth to power,” says Amsterdam-based Prince Claus Fund for Culture and Development.
Fatos Lubonja, 64, is a journalist, author, television commentator and leading critical voice in his country, often shocking the nation into necessary reflection. Seventeen years of imprisonment for ‘agitation and propaganda’ – due to critical writings and for supposedly belonging to a dissident underground movement – only strengthened his fiercely democratic approach. While in solitary confinement, Lubonja wrote “The Final Slaughter,” a compelling Stalinist-Albanian re-interpretation of the Oedipus story, and later published “The Second Sentence” describing his incarceration and the totalitarian labyrinth. Released when everyone was praising the new so-called democratic government, Lubonja was one of the first to denounce the ongoing human rights abuses including those against his imprisoners, former functionaries of the deposed regime, says the jury about Lubonja.
Consistently objective in his analysis and maintaining complete independence from all political parties, Lubonja speaks out against oppression and wrongdoing in different guises regardless of the perpetrator. He exposes the frauds and abuses of those in power as well as those who seek to replace them, both on the left and the right. His semi-fictional book “The False Apocalypse” reports his experience of the political struggle in 1997 and Albania’s descent into anarchy.
A regular contributor to newspapers and television, Lubonja edits and publishes the periodical Pà«rpjekja (The Endeavour), which tackles sensitive issues such as Albanian nationalism, identity and myths, the growth of crony capitalism and the destruction of local architectural heritage.
