Zef ZORBA
BIOGRAPHY
The literary significance of the poetic works of Zef Zorba
(1920-1993) was only discovered after his death in January 1993.
He has since joined the ranks of the great classics of Albanian
poetry stifled by the communist regime.
Zef Zorba was born in Kotor in Montenegro of an Albanian family.
He finished secondary school in Shkodra and studied political
science at the University of Padua, beginning in1941. The events
of the Second World War forced him to abandon his university
education and to return to his native Shkodra in 1943, where
he worked initially for a bank. From 1945-1946, he served as
director of the House of Culture in Shkodra where he was responsible
for the staging of plays which would soon be regarded as a threat
to the new communist authorities, Juda Makabe by the proscribed
Gjergj Fishta, and Henrik Ibsen's En Folkefiende (Enemy
of the People). It is perhaps for this reason that he was arrested
in 1946 and charged with "agitation and propaganda."
Zorba spent the following years in labour and "re-education"
camps until his release in 1951. He thereafter kept a low profile
and worked as a modest bookkeeper for the Shkodra district administration
until his retirement in 1980. Zef Zorba is the author of poetry,
plays, libretti, essays and studies. Of his literary works, only
one volume has been published, the thin, but much appreciated
collection Buzë të ngrira në gaz, Tirana
1994 (Lips Frozen in Joy). |
Albanian Literature in Translation
Modern
Authors from Albania (late 20th - 21st centuries)
