Gëzim HAJDARI
BIOGRAPHY
Gëzim Hajdari (b. 1957) was born in Lushnja in central
Albania of a family persecuted by the communist regime. He studied
Albanian language and literature in Elbasan. In 1992, he moved
to Italy and lived alone in Frosinone in the humble ruins of
a building which had been abandoned for many years. In 1997,
when he received Italy's prestigious Montale Prize for unpublished
poetry, the municipal council of Frosinone, a town situated between
Rome and Naples, offered him a new apartment. Hajdari, now one
of the leading non-Italian poets of Italy, though still an outsider
in Albanian literature itself, writes and publishes both in Albanian
and Italian.
Gëzim Hajdari has published numerous volumes of verse,
most of which recently in bilingual (Albanian-Italian) editions:
Antologjia e shiut (Anthology of the Rain), Tirana 1990,
reprint Santarcangelo di Romagna 2000; Ombra di cane / Hije
qeni (Shadow of the Dog), Frosinone 1993; Sasso contro
vento / Gurë kundër erës (Stone Against the
Wind), Milan 1995; Pietre al confine (Stones at the Border),
Ancona 1998; Corpo presente (Body Present), Tirana 1999;
Erbamara / Barihidhur (Bitter-Grass), Santarcangelo di
Romagna 2001; Stigmate / Vragë (Stigmata), Nardò
/ Lecce 2002; and Spine nere / Gjemba të zinj (Black
Thorns), Nardò / Lecce 2004. He is also the author of
San Pedro Cutud (San Pedro Cutud), Santarcangelo di Romagna,
2004, on his travels in the Philippines. Hajdari has been marked
as an individual and as a poet by his experience of exile and
isolation. "My identity is Gëzim, my body is my fatherland,"
he tells us. |
Albanian Literature in Translation
Modern
Authors from Albania (late 20th - 21st centuries)
