Libera again, Libera again

Writing for Kosovo Online: Muharem Bazdulj, writer and journalist

It is often said, with good reason, that Balkan nations know very little about each other. Literature is a good paradigm for this. A writer usually has to become a minor or major global star to be translated in neighboring countries. This is the case with Cartarescu for Romanians, Gospodinov for Bulgarians, Kadare for Albanians, and Albahari for Serbs, for example. In almost all these cases, translations into English, German, or French have served as "repetitors". However, fortunately, the mentioned authors are not the only ones whose translations exist in neighboring countries.

The famous Belgrade Book Fair is currently underway. Statistics say that most people attending the fair do not come with a list of desired books but allow the chance to impose a title on them. I hope that one of the unexpected hits of this fair will be the novel "Closed for Vacation" by Albanian writer Stefan Capaliku. The book was published by the renowned Belgrade publishing house "Clio", and it was translated from Albanian by Danilo Brajovic. A few years earlier, the same publishing house published another novel by the same author, translated by the same translator, titled "Everyone goes crazy in their own way". The first edition of that novel sold out, showing that our readers are interested in Capaliku's work.

In any case, even the relatively banal and essentially commercial blurb of his new novel clearly reveals why it might be of interest to our readers: "At the crossroads of Belgrade, Tirana, and Shkodra, in the midst of World War II, the drama of unhappy love unfolds for those who longed for a happy future. ’Closed for Vacation’ firmly grips us and takes us to the other side, the one from which we have never viewed history. This is a story of the past seen through the eyes of losers, the destinies of people forced to live in entirely wrong contexts. Engaged in desperate attempts to resolve personal upheavals, amidst the greatest, collective turmoil, heroes of different ethnic and religious backgrounds are equalized in suffering and hardship. Germans, Serbs, Italians, and Albanians, in mutual interweaving and contacts, are not treated here merely from the standpoint of historical responsibility. They are guilty in their own lives, which constantly slip out of their control. War erases differences among people, showing that all they long for is one thing – love“.

Stefan Capaliku was born in 1965. He graduated in Albanian language and literature from the University of Tirana in 1988. Afterward, he pursued further education in Italy, the Czech Republic, and England, and he defended his doctoral dissertation in 1996. Since 2005, he has been a researcher at the Center for Albanian Studies and a Professor of aesthetics at the University of Arts in Tirana. He writes poetry, prose, plays, and essays that have been translated into English, German, French, Italian, Romanian, Polish, Bulgarian, Serbian, Macedonian, and Turkish. He is also a theater and film director. For his plays performed at national and international theater festivals, he has won numerous awards and recognitions and was declared the best Albanian playwright in 1995, 2003, 2007, 2012, and 2016.

But if I had to quickly explain why Capaliku is a good writer to someone, I wouldn't emphasize his novels. Reading a novel still takes time. Therefore, we need a much smaller sample in the form of a short story. We can find this sample in a Croatian electronic literary magazine.

The story is called "Libera" and begins like this: "It happened in the early '90s. The youngest saleswoman in the city's largest bookstore was named Liri (Freedom). At that time, Liri, the daughter of newcomers, an officer from the southern parts of the country, graduated and immediately got this job, as if it had been created just for her".

Here, "localization" is masterfully executed, which is both very precise and technically almost universal. However, in the second paragraph, Albania is directly mentioned, and shortly after, we learn that Liri received the nickname Libera from her lover, a man ten years older than herself. Some might say it's unusual for a nickname to be longer than a name, for the name to consist of two syllables and the nickname of three. Capaliku doesn't concern himself with that but reveals the young man's reason for choosing that nickname. He was very fond of the movie "Libera, amore mio", in which the main roles were played by Claudia Cardinale and Bekim Fehmiu.

Even this combination of Claudia Cardinale and Bekim Fehmiu is a sentimental and poetic signal. The story continues its course, but for a sensitive reader, Capaliku has certainly already "won" them over. After that information, the nickname Libera becomes unforgettable. And a writer who attributes a weakness for Claudia Cardinale and Bekim Fehmiu to his character will undoubtedly be seen as a "local" writer here.