TIRANA, March 22 – For the first time this year, Albania was represented by five authors in its book stand at the Leipzig Book Fair.
The Minister of Culture Mirela Kumbaro, who participated in the event, said the Albanian book stand is one of culture.
“When we speak about European integration, it is culture that best represents us, that plays a role in economically and politically promoting EU integration. Traduki membership is an integration promoter,” Kumbaro said.
The Albanian stand also included the Macedonian Minister of Culture Robert Alagjozovski, Montenegro’s Minister of Culture Aleksandar Bogdanovic, the Director of the Traduki network Antje Contius and representatives of Austria’s Ministry of Culture.
The conversation’s moderator, Mimoza Hysa, said that representation of Albanian letters in this fair is the creation of an all-inclusive space.
“Literature helps us tell the unusual isolation and long transition and to understand ourselves and the other. This is why, in the same Albanian stand we are represented by writers Ismail Kadare and Kasem Trebeshina, to create an open dialogue,” Hysa said.
Three writers, very different from each other, shared their motivation and literature topics.
Thanas Medi, an Albanian immigrant in Greece for years, confessed the perseverance that pushed him to tell the story of a forgotten minority: the Vllahs.
That was the story of a wandering population, one which wandered and built huts next to river banks, in a place where the minority itself was born. It was the story of preserving a culture full of traditions and weird rites, songs and a lot of magic.
Gazmend Kapllani, the second author, told the story of another painful relocation — that of the immigrant and his obsession with borders, both the visible and invisible ones.
Manjola Nasi on the other hand told the story of a “half journey” , a journey back in time. It is the story of a lighthouse that sees and watches over everyone who comes and goes unmoving.
Emigration themes were a big part of the panelists’ discussion, mainly centered on the question of who is the biggest beneficiary: the one who stays, or the one who leaves?
For Kapllani, the world cannot survive without emigration, without the constant flow of people that enable us to know each other. The biggest beneficiary is a million dollar question, according to him. Medi, on the other hand, said that migration happens for a better future and greatly helps one’s growth.
In the fair, Albanian literature was represented by Kadare’s quote saying “literature gave me freedom, and not the other way around” , and with the best collection of Albanian literature and authors who have in the last three years been acclaimed locally and internationally.
