Artan P쳮aska
apernaska@tiranatimes.com
An Albanian author will be figured in the pristine 2010 edition of the Best European Fiction Anthology published by the American editor, Dalkey Archives Press. The local media reports that the Illinois-based American editor will edit an anthology representing lumps of works of the most successful European authors, and that the company has asked for a copyright license from the Albanian editor Toena to publish some chapters of the novel Living in an Island written by Ben Blushi (Gazeta Shqiptare, 4.05.2009).
These chapters were translated by the renowned researcher and translator Robert Elsie, famous for many literary translations from Albanian to English and a Dictionary of Albanian Authors. Besides the translated pages, the Best European Fiction 2010 will also offer a short biography of the author Ben Blushi.
Dalkey Archives Press has announced the forthcoming launch of Best European Fiction 2010, edited by Bosnian novelist Aleksandar Hemon, to be released by next January (January 2010). Some on-line libraries have already listed the anthology on pre-sale (Amazon announces a 340-pages paperback release on the 12.01.2010).
The novel Living in an Island (T롪etosh n롩shull) was published in April 2008 by the Albanian publisher Toena, which reports that in the ten successive months more than 20,000 copies of the book were sold throughout Albania.
The book was translated in Greek and published by the Greek editor Kastaniotos and may also shortly appear in French and in Italian.
Almost a year after the publication of Living in an Island, a new novel by Ben Blushi is reported to be arriving soon in the Albanian contemporary literary landscape. The book is titled Othello, the Moor of Vlora (Otello, Arapi i Vlor쳩 and is due to come out next week.
