TIRANA, Nov. 5 – Ardian Vehbiu is representing Albania in The New Literature from Europe Festival in New York City as one of the 12 selected writers. Featuring readings and discussions between leading and emerging literary voices from Europe, and some of America’s foremost writers and critics, the Festival, scheduled for Nov. 6 to 9 celebrates important new European literature in translation.
“I left Albania in 1990, lived in Italy until 1996 and have been in the U.S. ever since. I like to think of America as a new planet where I have landed. Not to mention that, living in New York, has allowed and inspired me to write and publish almost a dozen of books in my country of origin. Distance has given me the maturity and security I maybe lacked before. Or maybe I am just fooling myself,” Vehbiu told the festival organizers in an interview.
Born in Tirana, Albania, Ardian Vehbiu is a writer, researcher and translator based in New York. Author of 12 non-fiction and fiction books, as well as of a number of research papers in linguistics and semiotics, Vehbiu is the winner of the 2010 “Gjergj Fishta” national non-fiction award for a study of new patterns in public discourse under the totalitarian regime in Albania “Shqipja totalitare” , 2009, as well as the winner of the 2014 “Ardian Klosi” non-fiction award, for an essay dedicated to the image of the West in an isolated communist Albania “Sende qà« nxirrte deti” , 2013. His writing is featured regularly in the Albanian press and has been translated in Italian, English and Romanian. Since 2007, he manages “Peizazhe tà« fjalà«s” , a blog which has become a strong point of reference for cultural, social and linguistic debates in the Albanian-speaking world. He has also translated several works from Albanian into Italian, as well as from Italian, French and English into Albanian. His last work in Albanian is “Bolero” , a meta-fictional novel (2015).
