Borders, books, and the Balkans
As a boy in sealed-tight Communist Albania, Gazmend Kapllani grew up in a house with two libraries. One was a “window library” for show, mostly containing works by political icons Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, and Albanian party leaders. (Three whole shelves were devoted to the 80 books by the Balkan nation’s enigmatic leader, Enver Hoxha.) In his parents’ bedroom was a second library, concealed in two black suitcases. These were the “damned books,” forbidden by a totalitarian regime so isolated and repressive that Kapllani has called it “the North Korea of Europe.” The same boyhood house in Lushnjë had two aerials. One was on the roof, for show, angled to receive official state television broadcasts. The second, hidden inside, was designed to pick up signals from forbidden foreign stations. Included was Italian public radio, which Kapllani credits with inspiring his literary education — a consequence of his learning, on the sly,...