Lindita Arapi (born 30 June 1972) is an
Albania
Albania ( ; sq, Shqipëri or ), or , also or . officially the Republic of Albania ( sq, Republika e Shqipërisë), is a country in Southeastern Europe. It is located on the Adriatic and Ionian Seas within the Mediterranean Sea and shares ...
n writer and journalist. She is cited as a noteworthy example of a generation of female Albanian writers.
Together with her contemporaries,
Ervin Hatibi,
Agron Tufa, and
Rudian Zekthi, Arapi is one of Albania's present-day literary avant-garde writers.
She has been living in
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
since the late 1990s, where she has published several volumes of poetry. Her first book of poetry, ''Am Meer, nachts'' ("By the sea, at night"; 2007) was the first book of poetry written by a female Albanian poet in German.
Her
first novel
A debut novel is the first novel a novelist publishes. Debut novels are often the author's first opportunity to make an impact on the publishing industry, and thus the success or failure of a debut novel can affect the ability of the author to pu ...
, ''Vajzat me çelës në qafë'' (2010), translated into German in 2012,
was awarded a Book of the Year prize in Albania.
Biography
Born in
Lushnjë
Lushnjë (; in Lushnje's own dialect: ''Lushnje'' ; sq-definite, Lushnja) is a city and municipality in west-central Albania. It is located in the County of Fier. The total population is 83,659 (2011 census), in a total area of .
History
...
, Arapi studied the Albanian language and literature at the
University of Tirana
The University of Tirana ( sq, Universiteti i Tiranës, abbreviated UT) is a public university located at the central borough of Tirana 10 in Tirana, Albania. It was established as the ''State University of Tirana'' in 1957 through merging of ...
from 1990 to 1994. In 1993, Arapi published her first book of poems. Three years later, she moved to Germany, where she studied German in
Cologne
Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western States of Germany, state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 m ...
.
That same year, 1996, she received a scholarship from the
Heinrich Böll
Heinrich Theodor Böll (; 21 December 1917 – 16 July 1985) was a German writer. Considered one of Germany's foremost post-World War II writers, Böll is a recipient of the Georg Büchner Prize (1967) and the Nobel Prize for Literature (1972).
...
Foundation and served as an Honorary Fellow in Writing at the
University of Iowa
The University of Iowa (UI, U of I, UIowa, or simply Iowa) is a public university, public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is org ...
.
It was followed by a doctorate in journalism (another source states Cultural Studies)
at the
University of Vienna
The University of Vienna (german: Universität Wien) is a public research university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world. With its long and rich histor ...
. In 2010, she published her first novel, and also translated some German-language texts into Albanian, including poems by
Günter Grass
Günter Wilhelm Grass (born Graß; ; 16 October 1927 – 13 April 2015) was a German novelist, poet, playwright, illustrator, graphic artist, sculptor, and recipient of the 1999 Nobel Prize in Literature.
He was born in the Free City of Da ...
,
Joseph Roth
Moses Joseph Roth (2 September 1894 – 27 May 1939) was an Austrian journalist and novelist, best known for his family saga ''Radetzky March'' (1932), about the decline and fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, his novel of Jewish life ''Job'' ( ...
,
Elias Canetti
Elias Canetti (; bg, Елиас Канети; 25 July 1905 – 14 August 1994) was a German-language writer, born in Ruse, Bulgaria to a Sephardic family. They moved to Manchester, England, but his father died in 1912, and his mother took her t ...
and
Felicitas Hoppe
Felicitas Hoppe (born 22 December 1960) is a German writer. She received the Georg Büchner Prize in 2012.
Biography
Early years
Felicitas Hoppe was born in Hamelin, Lower Saxony, and grew up there. After her Abitur she studied literature, r ...
. As a journalist, Arapi has worked as a freelance radio editor
for the Albanian program of
Deutsche Welle
Deutsche Welle (; "German Wave" in English), abbreviated to DW, is a German public, state-owned international broadcaster funded by the German federal tax budget. The service is available in 32 languages. DW's satellite television service con ...
,
serving as a correspondent in
Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
.
She was one of 19 authors featured at the
Berlin International Literature Festival
The Berlin International Literature Festival (german: internationales literaturfestival berlin) or ''ilb'' is an annual event based in Berlin. Every September, the festival presents contemporary poetry, prose, nonfiction, graphic novels and inte ...
in 2012.
Arapi resides in
Bonn
The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr r ...
. She is married and has two daughters.
Selected works
* ''Kufomë lulesh'' (1993) (poetry)
* ''Ndodhi në shpirt'' (1995) (poetry)
* ''Melodi te heshtjes'' (1998) (poetry)
* ''Wie Albanien albanisch wurde. Rekonstruktion eines Albanienbildes''. Vienna, 2001; Buchpublikation: Marburg 2005, (essay)
* ''Shenjat e dorës'' (2006) (poetry)
* ''Am Meer, nachts'' (2007) (poetry)
* ''Vajzat me çelës'' (2010), dt. ''Schlüsselmädchen''. Berlin 2012, (novel)
See also
*
Rreze Abdullahu
Rreze Abdullahu Ferizaj, Kosovo is a Kosovo Albanian writer. She is best known for ''Nuk du luftë'' (I don't want war), a wartime diary she kept as a child during the 1999 Kosovo conflict. The diary is written in her native Gheg
Gheg (als ...
*
Mimoza Ahmeti
Mimoza Ahmeti (born 12 June 1963) from Kruja is an Albanian woman poet.
Works
After two volumes of verse in the late eighties, it was the 53 poems in the collection Delirium, Tirana 1994 (Delirium), which caught the public's attention. Her mo ...
*
Flora Brovina
Flora Brovina (born 30 September 1949) is a Kosovar Albanian poet, pediatrician and women's rights activist. She was born in the town of Srbica in the Drenica Valley of Kosovo, and was raised in Prishtina, where she went to school and began study ...
*
Klara Buda
Klara Buda is a French Albanian journalist and writer. She is the former head of the Albanian Department of Radio France Internationale (RFI), which she left in 2010. Buda has also worked for UNESCO and the BBC. She is of French nationality and ...
*
Diana Culi
Diana most commonly refers to:
* Diana (name), a given name (including a list of people with the name)
* Diana (mythology), ancient Roman goddess of the hunt and wild animals; later associated with the Moon
* Diana, Princess of Wales (1961–1997) ...
*
Elvira Dones
Elvira Dones (born 1960) is an Albanian novelist, screenwriter, and documentary film producer. Born in the coastal city of Durrës Dones graduated from the State University of Tirana. In 1988 she was employed by Albanian State Television and i ...
*
Musine Kokalari
Musine Kokalari (10 February 1917 – 14 August 1983) was an Albanian prose writer and politician in Albania's pre-communist period. She was the founder of the Social-Democratic Party of Albania in 1943. Kokalari was the first published female wr ...
*
Helena Kadare
Helena "Elena" Kadare (; born 21 September 1943) is an Albanian screenwriter, translator and author of short stories and novels. One of the latter, 1970's ''Një lindje e vështirë'', is the first novel by a woman to have been published in Alb ...
*
Irma Kurti
Irma Kurti (born March 20, 1966, in Tirana) is a well-known Albanian poet, writer, lyricist, journalist and translator. She is a naturalized Italian citizen.
Life
She graduated from the English Department of the University of Tirana in 1988, a ...
References
External links
Lindita Arapi interview, Iowa City, Iowa, 1996 University of Iowa
The University of Iowa (UI, U of I, UIowa, or simply Iowa) is a public university, public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is org ...
Biography from the Berlin International Literature Festival
{{DEFAULTSORT:Arapi, Lindita
20th-century Albanian poets
21st-century Albanian poets
Albanian women poets
1972 births
Living people
People from Lushnjë
University of Tirana alumni
University of Vienna alumni
University of Iowa alumni
Albanian women novelists
Albanian novelists
Albanian emigrants to Germany
International Writing Program alumni
20th-century Albanian women writers
21st-century Albanian women writers
German-language poets