Visiting the stand of the Tirana Times publishing house, Tirana Mayor Lulzim Basha pledged the municipality would co-finance the book fair starting next year and announced the award of the
Tirana big prize for literature starting from 2014
TIRANA, Nov. 18 – Luljeta Lleshanaku has been announced the “Author of the Year” in the 2013 Tirana book fair, grabbing the most important award of the book fair bringing together some 100 Albanian-speaking publishers. Lleshanaku, 45, was awarded the prize for her latest collection of poetry called “Pothuajse Dje” (Almost yesterday). “The gratitude goes beyond my personal ambitions. I have been working on this book for almost six years,” said Lleshanaku.
Winner of the prestigious International Kristal Vilenica Prize (2009), Lleshanaku belongs to the first “post-totalitarian” generation of Albanian poets, but is a ‘completely original poetƨer poetry has little connection to poetic styles past or present in America, Europe, or the rest of the worldƩt is not connected to anything in Albanian poetry either’ (Peter Constantine).
The best children’s book award went to renowned Gaqo Bushaka for his “Pas festes se Abetares” book (After the ABC book) festivities.” Petrit Sinani was awarded the best translator prize for his masterful translation of “The Myth of Sisyphus” by Albert Camus, who was commemorated in the book fair on his 100th birth anniversary with some special events organized by the French embassy in Tirana.
Kosovo author Sabri Hamiti was awarded for the best research book for his book on father Zef Pllumi, who wrote “Rrno Vetem per me Tregue” (Live to tell a true), a true story of religious persecution in communist Albania.
The In Memoriam award went to Hida Halimi for her “Shpina” (Spine) novel. The awards were given by a jury composed of renowned researchers and critics such as Arta Marku, Fatos Baxhaku, Parid Teferici and Severina Pasho.
Visiting the stand of the Tirana Times publishing house, Tirana Mayor Lulzim Basha pledged the municipality would co-finance the book fair starting next year and announced the award of the Tirana big prize for literature starting from 2014. Basha also announced an initiative to turn the houses of some of Albania’s most internationally renowned authors into museum centres accessible to visitors.
“I am committed to support this book fair and turn it into an event regularly supported by Tirana municipality budget,” said Basha
While a record 90,000 people are estimated to have visited the book fair, publishers reported lower sales in this year’s edition.
Some 100 publishing houses from Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and the Diaspora are participating in the 16th edition of Tirana book fair, the largest book fair bringing together Albanian-speaking publishers held from November 13 to 17. The focus in this year’s edition was on copyright and piracy which the Albanian Association of Publishers estimates at around 30 to 40 percent of the Albanian book market. Petrit Ymeri, the head of the Albanian Association of Publishers called for clear policies to support publishers and bookshops which are facing crisis as unveiled by lower sales and new book titles.
“We are facing the fact of many bookshops in Tirana, Fier and other cities closing down. The debt crisis is escalating. Book sales have dropped by a sharp 20 to 30 percent in the past couple of years while the number of new book titles dropped to 1,086 this year, down from 2,886 last year. If no support policies toward bookshops are taken, soon there will be only few of them and access to books will further drop,” said Ymeri.
Claudio Magris, a well-known Italian researcher and Italian TV host Bruno Vespa were the special guests of this year’s edition.
The Tirana Times publishing house and the Albanian Institute for International Studies (AIIS) participated in the book fair with a joint stand in the first floor of the exhibition area with 84 book titles featuring Albanian authors such as Sabri Godo, Prec Zogaj and winners of Nobel Prize for Literature such as Samuel Beckett and Herta Muller. Several publications by the AIIS Library of International Relations & History from Bernd Fischer, Francis Fukuyama, Dominique Moisi etc were featured in the stand.
