Astrid Hawk
Read for the Around the World challenge: Albania. I know that everyone recommends Ismail Kadare for Albanian writing... but none of his books sounded appealing to me, and after reading about him, I learned that he either shares political views with the dictatorial communist State in Albania, OR he compromised his personal principles to align with the reigning party. I came across this book, and knew immediately it was more what I was interested in (principled resistance to misinformation and lies and human rights abuses). It took me a long time to find a copy in the US (actually, I didn't find a copy in the US - my used copy came from the UK), which only confirmed my suspicion that I was on the right track with my selection.
I was expecting this book to be a description of life inside an Albanian gulag, sort of in the same vein as some of the North Korean gulag books out there - but the point of this book is not at all to reveal gulag conditions. Although the first 3rd or so does describe living and working in the Albanian mining work camp Spaç in the 1970s, and the author describes quite a bit of his subsequent solitary confinement in the Tirana prison while awaiting trial, the point of the book is not the gulag. The point of the book is to pay tribute to 2 brave men, friends of the author who were political prisoners along with him, who fought back against the political direction of the country until the end.
In February 1978, author Fatos Lubonja was serving a 7 year sentence in the "re-education" facility of Spaç, a work camp where prisoners were required to perform grueling work in the mines and be subjected to other punishments like deprivation, when he is arrested and taken to the Tirana prison (where prisoners are held for trial). He is held there for 5 months in solitary confinement with no visitors, insufficient food, no bed, and no windows while he is interrogated in preparation for trial and is subsequently tried, alongside 10 other men, for supposedly "organizing" an anti-Hoxha and anti-Albanian political propaganda and agitation group. Most of the book is a detailed account of the trial in which all of the men were falsely accused, showing how the State used fear and intimidation tactics with blatently false (coerced) testimony from other prisoners to try to break the accused and sentence them for their supposed "crimes".
Lubonja's book is surprisingly detached, particularly in the descriptions of the horrid camp and prison conditions. He does not leave room for a lot of emotions in his descriptions of the interrogation and the trial. It is easy to imagine how the State broke many a prisoner with threats and fear, obstinately refusing to see truth and continuing to push lies, immovable by either human connection or reason. The two men accused of "leading" the alleged organizations were particularly stalwart, refusing to be cowed by the State, calmly defending their positions to the end. It is heartbreaking and infuriating to read.
Lubonja does not spend much time educating the reader on the political situation in Albania at the time, nor Albania's history and international relations. I found it helpful to do a bit of pre-reading on their alliances and political development through the first half of the 20th century, and I was glad that I happened to have read Motherland by Julia Ioffe just prior to reading this, as it covers helpful context on Lenin, Stalin, and Krushchev that are highly relevant in Albania's political perspectives in the 1970s. Lubonja's writing (and the translation) are eloquent and advanced. This is not an ordinary convict's memoir. This is a reflection on survival, standing up for one's principals, and never surrendering to the lies of dictators.
Read for the Around the World challenge: Albania. I know that everyone recommends Ismail Kadare for Albanian writing... but none of his books sounded appealing to me, and after reading about him, I learned that he either shares political views with the dictatorial communist State in Albania, OR he compromised his personal principles to align with the reigning party. I came across this book, and knew immediately it was more what I was interested in (principled resistance to misinformation and lies and human rights abuses). It took me a long time to find a copy in the US (actually, I didn't find a copy in the US - my used copy came from the UK), which only confirmed my suspicion that I was on the right track with my selection.
I was expecting this book to be a description of life inside an Albanian gulag, sort of in the same vein as some of the North Korean gulag books out there - but the point of this book is not at all to reveal gulag conditions. Although the first 3rd or so does describe living and working in the Albanian mining work camp Spaç in the 1970s, and the author describes quite a bit of his subsequent solitary confinement in the Tirana prison while awaiting trial, the point of the book is not the gulag. The point of the book is to pay tribute to 2 brave men, friends of the author who were political prisoners along with him, who fought back against the political direction of the country until the end.
In February 1978, author Fatos Lubonja was serving a 7 year sentence in the "re-education" facility of Spaç, a work camp where prisoners were required to perform grueling work in the mines and be subjected to other punishments like deprivation, when he is arrested and taken to the Tirana prison (where prisoners are held for trial). He is held there for 5 months in solitary confinement with no visitors, insufficient food, no bed, and no windows while he is interrogated in preparation for trial and is subsequently tried, alongside 10 other men, for supposedly "organizing" an anti-Hoxha and anti-Albanian political propaganda and agitation group. Most of the book is a detailed account of the trial in which all of the men were falsely accused, showing how the State used fear and intimidation tactics with blatently false (coerced) testimony from other prisoners to try to break the accused and sentence them for their supposed "crimes".
Lubonja's book is surprisingly detached, particularly in the descriptions of the horrid camp and prison conditions. He does not leave room for a lot of emotions in his descriptions of the interrogation and the trial. It is easy to imagine how the State broke many a prisoner with threats and fear, obstinately refusing to see truth and continuing to push lies, immovable by either human connection or reason. The two men accused of "leading" the alleged organizations were particularly stalwart, refusing to be cowed by the State, calmly defending their positions to the end. It is heartbreaking and infuriating to read.
Lubonja does not spend much time educating the reader on the political situation in Albania at the time, nor Albania's history and international relations. I found it helpful to do a bit of pre-reading on their alliances and political development through the first half of the 20th century, and I was glad that I happened to have read Motherland by Julia Ioffe just prior to reading this, as it covers helpful context on Lenin, Stalin, and Krushchev that are highly relevant in Albania's political perspectives in the 1970s. Lubonja's writing (and the translation) are eloquent and advanced. This is not an ordinary convict's memoir. This is a reflection on survival, standing up for one's principals, and never surrendering to the lies of dictators.