One of the most striking memoirs I’ve read. Lea Ypi describes her childhood and teenage years through the final years of Albanian state socialism, the post-1990 shift towards a multi-party system and free-market economy, the disorienting and destabilising turn towards free-market neoliberalism, and the Albanian Civil War. It’s rare, I think, to find stories of USSR/communist states that don’t present a flattened ideological narrative—by pandering to Western liberal exceptionalism or misplaced leftist apologia. Ypi’s book feels quite special in that regard! Flood, Alison (23 November 2021). "Costa prize 2021 shortlists highlight climate anxiety". The Guardian . Retrieved 3 January 2022. CHOSEN AS A BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE GUARDIAN, FINANCIAL TIMES, SUNDAY TIMES, TLS, DAILY MAIL, NEW STATESMAN AND SPECTATOR Wonderfully funny and poignant. . . a tale of family secrets and political awakening amid a crumbling regime' Luke Harding, Observer Both adults seemed cursed by their “biographies”: a destiny-shaping word that loomed over every Albanian. Neither had been able to study what they wanted at university. Ypi recreates their squabbles in drole dialogue. They disagreed over everything: human nature, money, and whether Beethoven’s third symphony or another march was played at Comrade Enver’s 1985 state funeral.

It’s a fascinating read, funny, tragic and insightful. I really enjoyed the glimpse into life in Albania and the fall of communism through the eyes of Lea. What moved me was the huge adjustment from one way of life to another and how people coped and changed their views on religion and politics. It’s not a heavy memoir and yet I leaned so much and enjoyed everything about the book. I knew nothing about Albania so delighted when a fellow goodreads reviewer recommended this one. Lea Ypi knows more than most about that difference. And she writes well - if a little dully in places - about her childhood and coming of age at one of the most interesting times in Albania's history. About half the book precedes the end of the Stalinist regime, the rest covers life after, life through the Albanian Civil War, and eventually her decision to leave the country. Just as if things are not going badly enough, international development agencies arrive to begin to push neo-liberal policies on to the Government. Free: Coming of Age at the End of History by Lea Ypi. Book of the Week. BBC Radio 4. 31 January 2022 . Retrieved 4 February 2022.From this side of history (and especially to Western readers), there are many aspects to life under Communism that may seem absurd, or improbable. And in reading about those experiences, there can be a tendency to exoticize them, or to feel pity, both on the part of the reader and the writer. It ends up feeling too expository or not genuine. But Ypi manages to sidestep this minefield by inhabiting and writing from the position of the child she used to be, a charming kid who took everything at face value. In doing so, the complex mechanisms of Communism are always present, but rarely interrogated, which allows us to live as little Lea lived: loving xhaxhi Enver and believing in Stalin, yes, but also exchanging gum wrappers for a chance at a sniff, and feeling genuine happiness at having an empty can of Coke to display on top of the TV. What makes the memoir utterly engrossing is not just how little Lea’s politics develop, but how she comes to find out how her parents and beloved granny, Nini, hide things to protect her. When they say a relative has graduated, they mean he has been released from jail. Dropping out means killing yourself. Studying international relations means being jailed for treason.

RSL Ondaatje Prize 2022 Shortlist Announced". Royal Society of Literature. 2022-04-20 . Retrieved 2022-04-20. There came a turning point in December 1990, when the first free election in decades was held, but civil war was still on the way in 1997, a time Ypi records through her diary entries from the time. I enjoyed the recreation of her childhood perspective, though I might have liked at least a short retrospective section from adulthood. The book is quite funny despite the often sobering realities of life as she recounts her parents’ shifting fortunes and the fates of friends and classmates. I was surprised to learn that the family was Muslim, and that the author’s first language was French thanks to her grandmother; Albania is a real mix of cultures (I had to look on a map: it’s above Greece and just across a short stretch of water from Italy). It’s always fascinating to read of other cultures, and Lea Ypi’s memoir of growing up in Albania is no exception. Albania was the last Stalinist state in Europe, and as such, very little was known about it. That all changed with the creation of independent political parties, bringing about the fall of communism, just a year after the fall of the Berlin Wall.An insightful and highly original memoir. A moving and witty story about growing up in Albania in the final days of the last Stalinist outpost of the 20th century.

My knowledge of Albania was, until reading this, almost non existent. This historical memoir begins when Lea is a child, totally convinced that her country under communism was free. She was taught in school to revere Enver Hosta and couldn't understand why her family, unlike other famous, didn't have a framed picture of him. She couldn't understand why her biography, actually status, wasn't as promise nent as her classmates. She wouldn't find out the answer to her questions until the death of their leader, and the protests for true freedom that followed.

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Image Credit: ‘Street scene in Durrës with propaganda posters’ by Robert Schediwy licensed under CC BY SA 3.0