TIRANA, Oct. 17 – On his 82nd birthday, Dritero Agolli, one of Albania’s greatest living writers, has been awarded the prestigious Carlo Levi Italian national literary award. Agolli was given the award for being a poet, journalist and writer closely related to the tradition and roots of his birthplace, and always proudly pointing out his origin. “His lines give life to a touching call where all elements of life mix and merge to form an identity which is childhood, work, pain, battle, love, loss and saviour.”
Unable to attend, the prize award ceremony in Aliano, a small town in southern Italy, the prize was handed over to his daughter Elona.
“It is with great satisfaction that I receive the award, which bears the name of Carlo Levi, the distinguished painter, publicist and writer, the anti-fascist writer and dreamer of a new world without poverty, social injustice and wars. If only a miracle could happen and I could shake the hand of Carlo Levi himself. Now that would have been the greatest award of them all,” said Agolli in a message read by his daughter.
“The Albanian literature, from its first steps has been nourished by the Italian literature, art and culture, because we are neighbors and as they say, there is only a wall of water that divides us. Seagulls are not the only ones who fly above this wall of water. Poetry, prose, music and all the arts make the same journey,” said Agolli in his message.
Drit쳯 Agolli
Drit쳯 Agolli (b. 1931) is a writer who has had a far from negligible influence on the course of contemporary Albanian literature. As a prose writer, Agolli first made a name for himself with the novel Komisari Memo, Tirana 1970 (Commissar Memo), originally conceived as a short story. This didactic novel with a clear social and political message was translated into English as The bronze bust, Tirana 1975.
Agolli’s second novel, Njeriu me top, Tirana 1975 (The man with a cannon), translated into English as The man with the gun, Tirana 1983, takes up the partisan theme from a different angle and with a somewhat more subtle approach.
After these two rather conformist novels of partisan heroism, the standard theme encouraged by the party, Agolli produced a far more interesting work, his satirical Shk쭱imi dhe r쯩a e shokut Zylo, Tirana 1973 (The splendour and fall of comrade Zylo), which has proved to be his claim to fame. Comrade Zylo is the epitome of the well-meaning but incompetent apparatchik, director of an obscure government cultural affairs department. His pathetic vanity, his quixotic fervour, his grotesque public behaviour, in short his splendour and fall, are all recorded in ironic detail by his hard-working and more astute subordinate and friend Demk롷ho serves as a neutral observer. Comrade Zylo is a universal figure, a character to be found in any society or age, and critics have been quick to draw parallels ranging from Daniel Defoe and Nikolay Gogol’s Revizor to Franz Kafka and Milan Kundera’s Zert.
All in all, Agolli’s strength in prose lies in the short story rather than in the novel. Sixteen of his short stories were published in English in the volume: Short stories, Tirana 1985. One early collection of tales, the 213-page Zhurma e ererave t롤ikurshme, Tirana 1964 (The noise of winds of the past), had the distinction of being banned and ‘turned into cardboard.’ The author was accused of Soviet revisionism at a time when the party had called for more (Maoist) revolutionary concepts in literature and greater devotion to the working masses.
Though Agolli was a leading figure in the communist nomenclature, he remained a highly respected pillar of public and literary life after the fall of the dictatorship, and is still one the most widely read authors in Albania. In the early 1990s, he was active for several years as a member of parliament for the Socialist Party of Albania. Among recent volumes of prose are: the short story collection Njer캠t롫risur, Tirana 1995 (Insane people); the novels Kalor촩 lakuriq, Tirana 1996 (The naked horseman) and in particular the volume Arka e djallit, Tirana 1997 (The devil’s box).
Drit쳯 Agolli has been a prolific writer throughout the nineties, a rare voice of humanity and sincerity in Albanian letters. (Biography by Robert Elsie, specialist in Albanian studies)
