Over the summer my Instagram feed has been packed with beautiful images of Albania. Time and money are preventing me from making a trip to Albania in person right now, so I decided to see if it was possible to satisfy my wanderlust (at least temporarily) by reading a book set there instead.

My choice of Albanian novel was A Girl in Exile (Requiem for Linda B.) by Ismail Kadare, translated by John Hodgson. There isn’t a massive selection of English translations of Albanian works, but the ones I found all sounded interesting, so I had a hard time making up my mind. In the end I chose this book because it was published relatively recently (2009), and seemed like it was set entirely in Albania.

A Girl in Exile by Ismail Kadare

The book begins with a stressed out Rudian Stefa, summoned to an interview with the Party Committee, trying to work out what he’s done wrong. As it happens, they’re investigating the death of a girl with a signed copy of his recent play – internally exiled and banned from entering the city of Tirana, they can’t work out how she got hold of a copy dedicated to her…

What’s this ghost doing here? Is this socialist realism or Hamlet?

A novel about death, paranoia (both personal and governmental), and life under a totalitarian communist regime may not seem like the ideal reading matter for someone keen to get Albanian wanderlust by proxy. In some ways it isn’t. For starters, it’s not the most action packed book in the world. The middle section in particular reminded me of a play (linking neatly with main character Rudian Stefa’s latest play, stuck in limbo awaiting approval from the Artistic Board) – a limited number of locations and stilted conversations taking place between a limited number of characters. Rudian is not what you would call likeable, and the other characters remain somewhat unformed, adding to the sense of paranoia, not knowing who you can trust…

Who are you? Are you really my prince? Who are you? And me, who am I?

The book feels like it’s written for the Albanian market, understandably. This means that not everything is spelled out in the way you might expect from an English author writing a story set in Albania for example. I don’t see this as a negative, as I write this having spent an entire day doing fascinating additional research on everything from internment to the suicide of prime minister Mehmet Shehu. Having said that, coupled with the story told in fits and spurts via an intermediary, this lack of context contributed towards my struggle to engage with Linda’s story.

When you’re not sure you feel totally safe in your own skin, pass in front of the Dajti Hotel. If your feet hesitate even for an instant before entering, forget it.

Admit that you’re no longer safe, to put it mildly.

However, I do like a challenge, and when Rudian stepped outside his mind front door, I was treated to a glimpse of Tirana in the mid-eighties. This surprisingly detailed view of the city, and the general context in which the book is set, meant that despite my lack of engagement with the plot, this was still an enjoyable read – particularly the first and last quarters.

Overall, I’m glad I read it. I don’t think I’d read it again, but I’m keen to try other books by Kadare, as well as the other Albanian authors I’ve discovered.

Albanian locations in A Girl in Exile

If you find yourself in Albania and want to check out some of the locations in the book, you can find them on this map. I also added a few which aren’t featured in the book but seemed appropriate!

Famous/Infamous Albanians mentioned

• Migjeni: Albanian poet
• Enver Hoxha: not mentioned by name, but Albania’s leader from 1941 to 1985 makes a couple of cameos
• Ismail Kadare: the author of this book was the first ever winner of the Man Booker International Prize in 2015, and is regarded as one of Albania’s leading literary figures, so I think he deserves a spot on this list

Other books set in Albania

You can find more Albanian reading inspiration on my Reading Around The World page.

Tip: to find the country you’re looking for, type Ctrl+F or Command+F when you’re on the page to open a search box

Reading around the world

I realised while reading this book that most of the books I’ve read this year have been either British or American. I think of myself as someone who reads broadly, and I’m even in a book club which tries to read books from around the world. It made me feel a bit disappointed that I wasn’t really living up to this idea I had of myself.

So, I’ve decided to challenge myself to read more books from other countries. I’m not going to do it quickly, and I’m not going to solely focus on this in my reading (my unread shelf would be sad). As with any good challenge, there are parameters:

• The book should be primarily set in the country
• The book should be written by a national or someone who has lived in the country for a decent amount of time
• The book should be published since 2000 (and ideally since 2015)
• I’ll try to source books from the following locations (in order of preference): library, World of Books, Bookshop.org/other independent bookshop. Amazon is a last resort.

I’ve even dedicated a notepad for the challenge! I don’t normally write detailed reviews of books, but creating this blog post and my Albania journal page was a lot of fun! My boyfriend told me the Albania journal page looks like a school project and I am down with that.

I’m currently waiting impatiently for my next choices to arrive from the library, and we’ll be off to Brazil and Colombia. If you have any recommendations for what to read for other countries, I’d love to hear them in the comments. I’ve set up a page to keep track of this challenge, too.

Cover image credit: “Albania (6)“, by Dr Hans-Günter Wagner, licenced under CC BY-SA 2.0