One figure from northern Albania who played a key role in the Rilindja culture of the nineteenth century was Pashko Vasa (1825-1892), also known as Wassa Effendi, Vaso Pasha, or Vaso Pasha Shkodrani. This statesman, poet, novelist and patriot was born in Shkodra. From 1842 to 1847 he worked as

Sterjo Spasse (1914-1989) is a novelist and short story writer of (Slav) Macedonian origin from Lake Prespa. It was while teaching in the little village of Derviçan south of Gjirokastra that the eighteen-year-old Spasse began writing his first novel, and his masterpiece, Nga jeta në jetë – Pse!?, Korça 1935

Filip Shiroka (1859-1935) is a classical Rilindja poet whose verse was first to become known in later years. He was born and raised in Shkodra and educated there by the Franciscans. Among his teachers was poet Leonardo De Martino (1830-1923), whose influence is omnipresent in Shiroka’s verse. His earliest verse

Lasgush Poradeci (1899-1987) had lived the final years of his life in his beloved town of Pogradec on Lake Ohrid, not far from the Macedonian border, tending his garden and studying the ever-changing moods of the lake. The rhythmic and gentle lapping of the waves had always been among the

As Metropolitan of the Albanian Orthodox Church in America and former prime minister of Albania, Fan Noli was not only a noted religious figure, statesman and poet, he was also a gifted translator. His elegant Tosk Albanian versions of Shakespeare were and are much admired in the Albanian world. In

Fan Noli (1882-1965), also known as Theophan Stylian Noli, was not only an outstanding leader of the Albanian-American community, but also a pre-eminent and multi-talented figure of Albanian literature, culture, religious life and politics. Noli was born in the village of Ibrik Tepe, south of Edirne (Adrianopole) in European Turkey

Classical poet Ndre Mjeda (1866-1937) bridges the gap between late nineteenth-century Rilindja culture and the dynamic literary creativity of the independence period. Mjeda was born on 20 November 1866 in Shkodra and, like so many other Gheg writers of the period, was educated by the Jesuits . Influential in his upbringing

TRAGEDY OR COMEDY? Man is a living guitar on which a fervent hand transforms the vibration of strings into melodies… tragic or comic? Man is a living guitar by which Good and Evil have revealed tragedies or comedies of their own. Man is a living guitar, by which God, in

THE STUDENT BACK HOME In one of the cities of Central Europe, Nushi was reading the letter which the postman had just delivered. He recognized that it was from home the moment he received it. Yes, the white, rectangular envelope conjured up visions of the one-storey house with the little

With Migjeni (1911-1938), contemporary Albanian poetry begins its course. Migjeni, pen name of Millosh Gjergj Nikolla, was born in Shkodra. His father, Gjergj Nikolla (1872-1924), came from an Orthodox family of Dibran origin and owned a bar there. As a boy, he attended a Serbian Orthodox elementary school in Shkodra