Author Lea Ypi Explores Albanians’ Struggles for Dignity Under Communism

Throughout her childhood, Lea Ypi knew her parents were “talking in secret”. “My childhood was full of mysteries about my family,” she recalled. Ypi, author of the acclaimed 2021 memoir Free: Coming of Age at the End of History and, more recently, Indignity: A Life Reimagined, was 11 when communism in Albania crumbled and only later came to learn of the suffering her grandparents endured under the Stalinist regime of Enver Hoxha. “I grew up as a girl in a communist system, a child who believed in the truths of that system, while I understood that there was something in my family that was not exactly the way I saw it,” Ypi said in an interview with BIRN during a visit to Pristina as a guest lecturer at the annual International Seminar on Albanian Language, Literature, and Culture. Subscribe to Balkan Insight Premium to read the full article. Please login to your account below if you are already a Premium Subscriber. Buy Premium Subscription Our Premium Service gives you full access to all content published on BalkanInsight.com, including analyses, investigations, comments, interviews and more. Choose your subscription today and get unparalleled in-depth coverage of the Southern and Eastern Europe. Buy Premium Subscription If you have trouble logging in or any other questions regarding you account, please contact us