Lea Ypi is a political theorist who teaches at the London School of Economics and an Albanian-British writer. She is, at least for the time being, the world's best-known Albanian writer, having eclipsed even Ismail Kadare.
Her memoir "Free" (2021) described her experience growing up in Albania as communism collapsed and the subsequent turmoil that brought the country to the brink of civil war in 1997. The prizewinning book has been translated into dozens of languages and made her something of a celebrity. It was not without controversy: some Albanians accused her of soft-pedalling the crimes of communism; others thought she soft-pedalled the role of her great-grandfather, a former prime minister who, as acting head of state, welcomed Mussolini's invading army in 1939.
Her second book, "Indignity" (2025), tells the story of her grandmother Leman Ypi, who was born to an aristocratic family in Thessaloniki and moved to Tirana in 1936. Through her grandmother's life, Professor Ypi tells the story of Albania in the 20th century, drawing on the archives of the Sigurimi, Albania's communist-era secret police. The book blends fact and fiction, in the vein of Anna Funder's biography of Eileen O'Shaughnessy.
At these prices, I lose money -- but I make it up in volume.