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Elvira Dones | |
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| Born | July 24, 1960 Durrës, Albania |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Language | Albanian |
| Nationality | Albanian, Swiss |
| Genre | Fiction, short story, poetry |
| Notable works | Sworn Virgin, Yjet Nuk Vishen Keshtu etc. |
Elvira Dones (born July 24, 1960) [1] is an Albanian novelist, [2] 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 in this capacity traveled to Switzerland, where she defected. Tried for treason in Albania (in absentia), she was sentenced to prison and denied access to her young son until after the collapse of communism in Albania in 1992. From 1988 until 2004, Dones lived in Switzerland where she worked as a writer and a television journalist, while also writing, directing, and producing several documentaries. Since 2004, she has lived in the United States. The bulk of her writing is in either Italian or Albanian, but several of her documentary films have been subtitled in English. Several of these films have either won or been nominated for various awards. Her most recent documentary, Sworn Virgin, tells the story of women in northern Albania who swear perpetual chastity in their teenage years and become men in their society —not women acting like men or women who have gender reassignment, but simply women who are now men. This film was named the best documentary at the Baltimore Women's Film Festival in 2007.
Enver Hoxha was an Albanian politician who was the ruler of Albania from 1944 until his death in 1985. He was the First Secretary of the Party of Labour of Albania from 1941 until his death, a member of its Politburo, chairman of the Democratic Front of Albania, and commander-in-chief of the Albanian People's Army. He was the twenty-second prime minister of Albania from 1944 to 1954 and at various times was both foreign minister and defence minister of the country.
The Albanian alphabet is a variant of the Latin alphabet used to write the Albanian language. It consists of 36 letters:
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Musine Kokalari 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 one of the first published female writers of Albania. After a short involvement in politics during World War II, she was persecuted by the communist regime in Albania, and not allowed to write anymore. She died in poverty and complete isolation.
Elvira Notari was an Italian film director, one of the country's early and more prolific female filmmaker. She is credited as the first woman who made over 60 feature films and about 100 shorts and documentaries, quite often writing the subjects and screenplays, inspired by Naples. The Elvira Notari Prize is named after her.
Margaret Masson Hardie Hasluck M.B.E. (1944) was a Scottish geographer, linguist, epigrapher, archaeologist and scholar.
Balkan sworn virgins are people who are assigned female at birth and who take a vow of chastity and live as men in patriarchal northern Albanian society, Kosovo and Montenegro. To a lesser extent, the practice exists, or has existed, in other parts of the western Balkans, including Bosnia, Dalmatia (Croatia), Serbia and North Macedonia.
The Hunt: Me and the War Criminals is a book written by Carla Del Ponte, published in April 2008. According to Del Ponte she received information saying about 300 Serbs were kidnapped and transferred to Albania in 1999 where their organs were extracted. The book caused a considerable controversy with Kosovan and Albanian officials denying these allegations and Russian and Serbian officials demanding more investigation. ICTY stated no substantial evidence supporting the allegations was brought to the court.
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Luljeta Lleshanaku is an Albanian poet who is the recipient of the 2009 Crystal Vilenica award for European poets. She was educated in literature at the University of Tirana and was editor-in-chief of the weekly magazine Zëri i rinisë. She then worked for the literary newspaper Drita (Light). In 1996, she received the best book of the year award from the Eurorilindja Publishing House. In 1999, she took part in the International Writers Program at the University of Iowa. She is the author of four poetry collections, one volume of which has been translated into English: Fresco, available from New Directions. The writer, critic and editor Peter Constantine, in his introduction to Fresco, sums up her style in this way:
Luljeta Lleshanaku is a pioneer of Albanian poetry. She speaks with a completely original voice, her imagery and language always unexpected and innovative. Her poetry has little connection to poetic styles past or present in America, Europe, or the rest of the world. And it is not connected to anything in Albanian poetry either. We have in Lleshanaku a completely original poet."
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Diana Çuli is an Albanian writer, journalist and politician. She graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Tirana in 1973. After graduation she joined the editorial boards of Drita and French-speaking magazine Les lettres albanaises. In 1990, she became involved with the democratic opposition and became the head of the Independent Women's Forum, and then joined the Albanian Social Democratic Party.
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 Albanian ethnicity. Buda writes prose, poetry, fiction and TV plays.
Sworn Virgin is a 2015 internationally co-produced drama film directed by Laura Bispuri. It was screened in the main competition section of the 65th Berlin International Film Festival.
Ardian Vehbiu is an Albanian author and translator. He was born in Tirana, Albania in 1959 and now resides in New York City. He is the author of 12 non-fiction and fiction books, as well as of a number of research papers in linguistics and semiotics. He is the winner of the 2009 "Gjergj Fishta" national non-fiction award with "Shqipja totalitare", (2009), as well as the winner of the 2014 "Ardian Klosi" non-fiction award, with "Sende që nxirrte deti", (2013).
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Morelle Smith is a Scottish author of poetry, essays, fiction, and travel articles who currently lives in Edinburgh, Scotland.
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