Fatos Lubonja is an Albania

Albania

Albania , officially known as the Republic of Albania , is a country in Southeastern Europe, in the Balkans region. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea...

n writer and dissident.

Life

Fatos is the son of Todi Lubonja, who was a close associate of Enver Hoxha

Enver Hoxha

Enver Halil Hoxha was a Marxist–Leninist revolutionary andthe leader of Albania from the end of World War II until his death in 1985, as the First Secretary of the Party of Labour of Albania...

 and head of Albanian national television until the early 1970s. In the course of Hoxha's split with the USSR in 1960, Todi Lubonja was arrested for voicing opposition. Fatos, who had been studying physics in Tirana, was also arrested due to the discovery of his diary, which was very critical of Hoxha.

Fatos Lubonja was initially sentenced to seven years' imprisonment. He was accused of belonging to a pro-Soviet circle in the prison and was sentenced to twenty more years. After having spent thirteen years at hard labor, he was moved to solitary confinement. There he wrote a diary and a novel on cigarette paper, which was concealed in the spine of a dictionary. His novel The Last Massacre is a take on communism under Hoxha.

Fatos Lubonja was released in 1991, after having spent seventeen years in prison. He is an outspoken critic of the Albanian government, Prime Minister Sali Berisha

Sali Berisha

Sali Ram Berisha is an Albanian politician and cardiologist, currently the Prime Minister of Albania and the leader of Democratic Party of Albania ....

, leader of the opposition Edvin Kristaq Rama and poet and novelist Ismail Kadare

Ismail Kadare

Ismail Kadare is an Albanian writer. He is known for his novels, although he was first noticed for his poetry collections. In the 1960s he focused on short stories until the publication of his first novel, The General of the Dead Army. In 1996 he became a lifetime member of the Academy of Moral...

. He edits the literary journal Përpjekja (Endeavour), in Tirana.

External links

• Përpjekja back issues at ceool.com