Albania's Fatos Lubonja Brings Apocalyptic Memoir to UK

The book tour will starts on October 15th at the London School of Economics, LSE, with a conversation between Lubonja and his translator, and later move to other cities including the Welsh capital, Cardiff, ending at the Ilkey Literature Festival.

"Lubonja has chosen to tell this incredible story through a narrative technique that operates on two levels: a third-person narrator, who describes the large-scale events that made international headlines, and the narrative of Fatos Qorri, the author's alter ego, who describes his own dramatic experiences in a personal diary," the UK publisher, Istros Books, writes. 

The book narrates the almost apocalyptic events of 1997 in Albania, when the country descended into anarchy following the collapse of a series of pyramid-like investment schemes in which most Albanians had invested their savings.

A well known writer and political commentator, Lubonja was imprisoned for 17 years in a labour camp under the Communist regime of Enver Hoxha, after being arrested at the age of 23.

After his release from prison following the regime's collapse in 1991, he published several books, including a memoir about his time in incarceration.