As the holidays are over, and September brings a whole buzz in every field of human activity in France, French readers will be able to find an Albanian author among the lot of writers that they will be discovering or reading again for the “rentrꥠlitteraire” (which would translate literally as “literary come-back”.
Porfida, Bal ࡖersailles (Porfida, Ball at Versailles) is the title of the book by the Albanian author, published by the French Editions Baudelaire in July 2009. The book had been formerly published in Albanian, under the title Porfida, ballo n롖ersaj묠by Ideart, in 2006.
The Albanian media gave this week large coverage to the news (Alsat, 9.09.2009). Mira Meksi is one of the numerous Albanian authors known to the French public. In 1995, she was with Edmond Tupja, one of the laureates of the short novel competition of Radio France Internationale (RFI).
A career devoted to literature
Mira Meksi was born in the coastal southern city of Vlor묠in Albania. She studied French literature at the Philological Faculty of the University of Tirana, where she entered in 1978. She later trained and specialized in literary translation from both French and Spanish languages. Mira Meksi has brought to the Albanian readers some of the world’s masterpieces in these languages from authors such as Borges, Marquez, Paz, Cortazar, Llosa, Fuentes, Lorca, Neruda, Dumas, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Verlaine, Yourcenar, Proust, Duras, etc.
The Albanian author is editor-in-chief of Mehr licht (in German: More light ! were the last words pronounced by the renowned German national writer Goethe on his deathbed). This literary magazine is one of the outstanding literary periodicals in Albania. It was found by Mira Meksi in 1996.
Mira Meksi is also reported to direct recently a European cultural magazine called Eurozine. The article “Can’t approach litterature rancorously” [27.09.2000] and the short story “The twin dolls” [11.02.2002] figure in the web site of this European cultural magazine, with their translations in English.
Meksi as a writer
Mira Meksi has also a considerable record of short stories and novels published in Albanian and in other languages. In the Italian-language cultural magazine Amaltea, Trimestrale di cultura, Dicembre 2008, Liljana Qafa makes warming evaluation of both Meksi’s translations and own writings.
One of the former books of the author, Frosina e Janin쳠(Frosina of Janina), has been frequently reedited in Alnania (Onufri, 2000, 2002, 2004). The book was also translated into Macedonian, (Frosina od Janina), and was published by Serembe.
Besides the known published works in some foreign languages, the Municipal Library of Lyon possesses a “tapuscript” (typed script) of Meksi’s “La montagne aux esprits,” (The mountain of the spirits) the translated by E. Chabuel and representing 58 pages. The Municipal Library of Lyon has been bestowed with the archives of the editor Paroles d Aube.
In 2005, Mira Meksi, was distinguished in Albania with the “Silver Quill” award for the best translation of the year.
