Free: Coming of Age at the End of History

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Note: This review gives the views of the author, and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, or of the London School of Economics and Political Science. But if the first part of Ypi's book is brilliant in its narrative, the second portion - focusing on Albania in the early 90s - is an absolute tour de force. It is harrowing, poignant, and a masterful analysis of the policies that led to the 1997 civil war; it is also a brilliant takedown of the groups and ideas that were meant to make of Albania a "western" democracy, with a "market economy" and the human costs of these "structural reforms." Moreover, in godless Albania, the family hide their Muslim heritage. When Lea asks her parents about their faith, Babi replies: “We are Muslims.” It's a good account of a period that I have to admit to knowing little about. I think Albania's challenges may have got lost to the general public amongst the horrors of the extended Balkan conflicts. I recall trying to keep on top of it all when the Balkans first started to fall apart, believing that surely there was a good side and a bad side, good countries and bad ones, good ethnic groups and evil ones. What soon became apparent was that there were many many shades of grey in that part of the world. Albania and the plight of ethnic Albanians in other Balkan countries all got way too complicated for many of us to understand. Perhaps though, the account of one person, one ordinary person and her lived experience can be more powerful than a blow by blow account of everything that was happening in the late 1990s.

In her award-winning memoir Free , Lea Ypi reflects on the paradoxes of freedom through her recollections of coming of age at the collapse of communist Albania in December 1990 and its transition from Enver Hoxha’s dictatorship to a presumably freer, capitalist and more democratic nation. This stylistically elegant and thought-provoking book is a significant contribution to understanding a period of Albania’s transition still left underexplored and will be read for many years to come, writes Andi Haxhiu . Free: Coming of Age at the End of History by Lea Ypi. Book of the Week. BBC Radio 4. 31 January 2022 . Retrieved 4 February 2022.Her father, too, had secrets. For years Lea had been brought up by her teachers to despise Xhafer Ypi, former prime minister of Albania and justice minister under the fascist Italian protectorate established after the flight of King Zog. Why, she wondered, did this disgraced figure have the same name as her dad? Later she discovered that he was her great-grandfather and his name had blighted the family, making it impossible for her parents to join the party and so further their careers.

My knowledge of Albania was, until reading this, almost non existent. This historical memoir begins when Lea is a child, totally convinced that her country under communism was free. She was taught in school to revere Enver Hosta and couldn't understand why her family, unlike other famous, didn't have a framed picture of him. She couldn't understand why her biography, actually status, wasn't as promise nent as her classmates. She wouldn't find out the answer to her questions until the death of their leader, and the protests for true freedom that followed. Bir an�� kitabı değil Özgür. Bir tarih kitabı da değil. Mini bir ülke rehberi, bir genç kızın günlüğü, bir ailenin soy dökümü, bir milletin denizin dibini boylayan hayalleri, bir tohumun fidana evrilmesi.. A thoughtful book on a country I knew next to nothing about. Sometimes I was a bit confused where in time I was and what the author was working towards, but a thought provoking book on societal systems, change, and the role of the individual in all this, and history in general. Both communism (Albanian style, which was particularly isolated) and crash capitalism after the fall of the regime of Enver Hoxha are critiqued in a show, don't tell manner, from the perspective of the author growing up. The oblique talk on people graduating from universities, an adult cover-up of the camps and prisons of the regime, is chilling. The shift in perception from especially Italy, who first welcomes refugees and when they come in the 10.000's per boat puts them in camps and extradites them, is very familiar, if not any less cynical than what we see in the current day refugee crises. My father assumed, like many in his generation, that freedom was lost when other people tell us how to think, what to do, where to go. He soon realised that coercion need not always take such a direct form. Socialism had denied him the possibility to be who he wanted, to make mistakes and learn from them, and to explore the world on his own terms. Capitalism was denying it to others, the people who depended on his decision, who worked in the port. Class struggle was not over. He could understand as much. He did not want the world to remain a place where solidarity is destroyed, where only the fittest survive, and where the price of achievement for some is the destruction of hope in others.Vi som lever i högerlandet Sverige i senkapitalismens era där konkurrens, hårdporr, jaget och aktiemarknaden är prioriterade områden, där allt är till salu för rätt pris och distinktionen mellan människor och varumärken upplöses. Orättvisor, avundsjuka, roffarmentalitet och brottslighet frodas. Av våra tidigare gemensamheter finns nästan inget kvar. Den här boken är lite som plåster på såren. Läs den, annars åker kanske ”kökskniven fram och kittlar lite grann”.

It’s a fascinating read, funny, tragic and insightful. I really enjoyed the glimpse into life in Albania and the fall of communism through the eyes of Lea. What moved me was the huge adjustment from one way of life to another and how people coped and changed their views on religion and politics. It’s not a heavy memoir and yet I leaned so much and enjoyed everything about the book. I knew nothing about Albania so delighted when a fellow goodreads reviewer recommended this one. Free does not fall into any of these traps. It is nuanced, oftentimes hilarious, a masterful blend of the personal and political, and above all original in its confrontation with Communism and Albania's long transition into a liberal and "democratic" country. Image Credit: ‘Street scene in Durrës with propaganda posters’ by Robert Schediwy licensed under CC BY SA 3.0 While reading I heard of a study done on the grandchildren of people who had been killed or sent to live in the countryside during the Chinese Cultural revolution, they found that generally they were at the same or higher socio-economic level of privilege as their grandparents. I fear that is a bit of a spoiler for this book, sorry about that. A book against simplification and generalisation and against thinking of perpetrators and victims. A thoughtful book on regime change and what events in the newspapers, in far away small countries mean for people of flesh and bloodDet mest slående med den här berörande och varma autofiktiva uppväxtromanen som förstås tilltalar den som intresserar sig för sydeuropeisk historia, mänsklig existens, frihet och politik är författarens perfekta humor. Told through a child's eyes yet never "juvenile", Ypi has a group of 4 elders who shape her world: each of her parents, who share different spaces on the socialist spectrum, her French-speaking grandmother, and her true-believer Stalin-loving teacher, Ms. Nora. Lea Ypi knows more than most about that difference. And she writes well - if a little dully in places - about her childhood and coming of age at one of the most interesting times in Albania's history. About half the book precedes the end of the Stalinist regime, the rest covers life after, life through the Albanian Civil War, and eventually her decision to leave the country. Free is definitely an easy read, but it is also throughout a thought-provoking nonfiction book that explores the relationship between freedom and hope through figurative, poetic language. It is also an elaboration of how Ypi’s experience of liberalism can be equated with ‘broken promises, the destruction of solidarity, the right to inherit privilege, and turning a blind eye to injustices’ (253). A stylistically elegant and often emotionally overwhelming narrative unfolds multifaceted dilemmas and questions on freedom through exploring family dynamics, dialogues and tensions.