Din MEHMETI
BIOGRAPHY
Din Mehmeti (b. 1932) is among the best-known classical
representatives of contemporary verse in Kosova. He was born
in 1932 in the village of Gjocaj i Junikut near Gjakova and studied
Albanian language and literature at the University of Belgrade.
He later lectured at the teacher training college in Gjakova.
Although he has published some prose, literary criticism and
a play, he is known primarily for his figurative poetry which
has appeared in fifteen volumes between 1961 and 1999.
Mehmeti's verse is one of indigenous sensitivity. He relies
on many of the figures, metaphors and symbols of northern Albanian
popular verse to imbue and stabilize his restless lyrics with
the stoic vision of the mountain tribes. Despite the light breeze
of romanticism which wafts through his verse, as critic Rexhep
Qosja once put it, this creative assimilation of folklore remains
strongly fused with a realist current, at times ironic, which
takes its roots in part from the ethics of revolt in the tradition
of Migjeni and Esad Mekuli. Mehmeti's poetic restlessness is,
nonetheless, not focussed on messianic protest or social criticism
but on artistic creativity and individual perfection. |
Albanian Literature in Translation
Modern
Authors from Kosova, Macedonia and Montenegro (late 20th
- 21st centuries)
