Ismail Kadare apart, few Albanian authors have been published in English. This month, however, Northwestern University Press will be publishing a new anthology of Albanian short stories entitled Balkan Beauty, Balkan Blood: Modern Albanian Short Stories. The book is edited by Dr Robert Elsie, a Canadian with an interest in Albania, whose Albanian literature website has been, until now, the only place to find a range of Albanian authors in translation.
On Saturday, we were at the Rogner meeting with an expat friend who was leaving Tirana. It was breakfast time, and as our friend was finishing his tea the breakfast room started to fill up with over-dressed (or under-dressed) young women wearing blue sashes. These were the contestants for the Miss Globe 2007 beauty pageant being held in Tirana tonight at the Palace of Congresses. High heel boots and mini-skirts - or in a couple of cases micro-skirts, or possibly just belts - have never struck me as obvious breakfast attire, but the girls seemed happy enough tottering and wobbling around with their tea and toast. I'm not sure why they were wearing their sashes - perhaps in case they forgot which country they came from. As we were leaving they were boarding a large coach which I had seen a number of times around the city in the last few days for their next trip. I'm not sure how some of them made it up the steps, or how they managed to sit down, but perhaps these are the ki...
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I had visions of bombarding, Serbia, Macedonia, and the greater parts of Greece, including Athens airport and acropolis... I got so carried away in my dream, that I was a bit dissapointed when I woke up...
... one can only envy Israel's might...