Anton PASHKU
BIOGRAPHY
Anton Pashku (1938-1995) was born in Grazhdanik near Prizren
of a peasant family from the Has Mountains. He worked as a journalist
in Prishtina for some time and thereafter edited prose and drama
for the Rilindja Publishing Company there. His experimental short
stories, novels and plays, showing affinities with the works
of George Orwell, Franz Kafka and Robert Musil, are subtle and
masterful studies of the psyche. Pashku is a writer who appeals
not to the broad masses of the public, but rather to the reader
who relishes the hermetic observations and details of character
analysis. It was the harsh political suppression of the first
generation of Kosova Albanian prose writers in the late fifties
that caused him to withdraw from the mainstream of literary production
and create a reclusive world of his own.
Among Pashku's publications are: the short story collections
Tregime, Prishtina 1961 (Short Stories); Kjasina,
Prishtina 1973 (The Oozing); Lutjet e mbrëmjes, Prishtina
1978 (Evening Prayers); and the novel Oh, Prishtina 1971 (Oh),
which is an exercise in style, a product of the grotesque, and
something quite unique in Albanian literature. He is also the
author of plays such as Sinkopa, Prishtina 1969 (Syncope),
and Gof, Prishtina 1976 (Fever). Anton Pashku ranks among
the best stylists in Albanian literature. |
Albanian Literature in Translation
Modern
Authors from Kosova, Macedonia and Montenegro (late 20th
- 21st centuries)
