“In Hell, there is a place for every woman who does not help another woman!”
“I think the greatest gift given to humans is ignorance, not knowing certain things, including not knowing the moment of death.”
This interview was first published in Revista Letrare: winter 2022
Interviewed by Arbër Ahmetaj
Interviewer: We have knocked on the door of one of the best poets of the Albanian language, with the desire to share feelings, life fragments, and creativity…
Luljeta Lleshanaku: Thank you, and congratulations on the magazine! It seemed very serious and elegantly conceived!
Interviewer: Based on previous experiences, how do you usually feel in front of a microphone, a recorder, or an email filled with questions? How do you feel before an interview?
Luljeta Lleshanaku: Age and experience seem to give you some comfort, because now it seems like you have an answer for everything. And you like to talk, to share, until you realize that you’re repeating the same things, which happens often because inner developments and reflections usually have a slower rhythm than those outside…
Interviewer: Let’s talk a bit about what has marked your life: what is poetry to you? What drove you towards it, and is there anyone, even a poet, who influenced this inclination?
Luljeta Lleshanaku: I thought so too until recently, that poetry is the reason I’m in this world… but lately, I’ve started to doubt that. It could be much simpler: to take care of my elderly parents who can’t care for themselves (in God’s eyes, things have a different measure!). Then poetry is no longer a goal or reason. Poetry has been and still is a means: it has made my life easier, as an alternative way of living, especially when I needed it the most, in my early days, as the only way out of the terrible and insurmountable reality of that time (I’m talking about Albania in the ’80s). And then, maybe poetry served to prepare me for hard times, for the period I’m going through now, if not for even more difficult times that lie ahead. A poem by Yehuda Amichai talks about how his father advises him to learn the violin, as he would need it for a bad day. Poetry simply made my life more bearable, in the sense that through art, you clothe the world with imagination, giving it qualities it doesn’t have, just like playing music. Even when it doesn’t convey an idea. For instance, one of my favorite paintings is a miserable landscape by Egon Schiele, called “House Wall on the River,” which doesn’t say anything but captivates you to the core, without you being able to explain why. It could be just the choice and harmony of colors that make such a depressing scene aesthetically affect our senses and emotions.
It was purely by chance that I entered poetry: around the age of 12, I was asked to recite something by heart, and since I couldn’t remember anything (the same happens to this day), I had to improvise something that was applauded. And from that moment, I started seeing poetry as an opportunity. Except for an uncle, no one in my family took me seriously because, for them, as a political family, art was a joke. And naturally, there is always a literature teacher who gives you confidence.
In the context of the poetry circulating at that time, it was very difficult to create a good taste for poetry. So, alright, I can write, but how do I write? Aside from a rare poem in Albanian literature, a Greek poetry anthology translated into Albanian at that time, a verse by Jacques Prevert or Paul Eluard, which were read with a kind of sentimental lament in some rare cultural radio program, there was nothing that impressed me. The only book that gave me a completely different perspective on poetry, even though I couldn’t fully understand it, was an English volume that I read in 1989, which must have entered Albania illegally (but to this day, I don’t know how): “The People, Yes” by Carl Sandburg, published in 1936.
Prose has given me more: from Hugo, I learned pathos, the power of good and evil; from Balzac, the way to penetrate the human mind. But more than reading, I believe that cinema has influenced me, the few films we secretly watched late at night on Italian television: Bertolucci, Fellini, Rossellini, etc. And it’s somewhat understandable since poetry consists more in abstracting power than in choosing words. Think of how many layers of meaning are found in cinematic details, dialogues, or even in simple gestures and facial expressions. A good director is as good as seven poets together, I think. And speaking of Bertolucci, even he, in his early days, wanted to become a poet, following in his father’s footsteps, Attilio Bertolucci, and it’s no coincidence that this urge led him to cinema.
Interviewer: Generally, your poetry is atypical, with long, narrative lines, unlike models… does it come naturally, or is it a goal in itself?
Luljeta Lleshanaku: In other words: there came a moment when I exhausted that urge to talk to the world about myself, consumed the personal story, and shifted the focus outside of myself. So, I moved from first-person narration to third-person narration, from lyrical to narrative poetry, which requires more time, maturity, vision, and, of course, courage. In essence, both are forms of observing the world in my eyes, but narrative poetry is not only more enjoyable (with subject, characters, conflicts) but also a more indirect and less imposing way of expressing oneself, just like Christ’s parables in the Bible. This doesn’t mean it’s easier to write; on the contrary. But on the other hand, this format gives you more space, freedom, and makes the reader a part of it. The long verses and structure come naturally, they’re not my choice, just like the rhythm in spoken conversation: when you have a story to tell, you take it easy. But narrative poetry is such that even though you like it a lot when you read it from others, you’re not ready for it until a certain moment comes, which is a mix of experience and maturity.
Interviewer: Writing poetry or literature in general is a process, so much so that it can turn into a lifestyle. I want to know: what is the pre-process that prepares you for the moment of writing? What happens to you? And how do you write?
Luljeta Lleshanaku: In terms of work discipline, I can’t say I’ve turned it into a lifestyle. Believe it or not, I’ve worked seriously on it for just one month in two years or something like that, which is why I have few books. But, I see it as a lifestyle in another aspect: the analytical curiosity with which I experience every experience is the kind of curiosity I talk about in the poem “Monday in Seven Days,” with the child eagerly waiting for his toys to break, to open the belly with gears, to understand the mechanism that sets them in motion. So, for me, poetry has been a search for the moment when objects and events are free from function, like a kind of autopsy, to understand the essence of things, how they work. I never write poetry when I’m in a strong emotional state, whether good or bad, because I need clarity and distance. I usually don’t take notes, which I should do; I’ve been reading relatively little for years because I haven’t had time, and reading also nourishes this whole process. But, in the end, that month that I manage to secure for myself, everything I’ve digested within two years comes to the surface, as memory has its own way of selecting things, which is very interesting. Even if I jot down an idea now and then on pieces of paper, which I then lose, I don’t regret it, because if I’m not able to remember it, then it didn’t have any weight.
But it’s almost always an external cause, a “lucky” coincidence that sets imagination and ideas in motion. Let me illustrate with an example, with a recent experience from which I think a poem emerged: in April, I lived in Zug, Switzerland, in a house on the outskirts of the city. To this day, I’m afraid of the dark because it gives me nightmares. One night, only two lights illuminated the darkness outside, two lights forgotten on in a building that turned out to be the school for children with different abilities. In the following nights, two other lights were forgotten, on different floors, and all this seemed like a Morse code that coincided (by chance) with the phenomenon, a perfect analogy with that isolated, misunderstood community that was unable to communicate with the world. Moreover, the “normal” children from the houses outside secretly entered to play with them, without their parents’ permission: we all feel sorry for them, we accept that they’re angels, but, ironically, we don’t want to mix our real world with “heavenly matters.” So, I gave you a rather banal example of how a small detail can generate endless ideas.
Interviewer: What’s on “The Other Side of the Mountain,” within “Homos Antarcticus”?
Luljeta Lleshanaku: A very good question. Perhaps the only good thing the long isolation from the world gave us was the illusion that “on the other side” life is good, there’s justice, so the localization of evil and the idealization of that world which we didn’t know closely. Political and cultural openness, globalization, gave everyone the opportunity to know that world, which naturally wasn’t as ideal as we imagined. That’s why I think that small nations, geographical limitations, and especially isolationist regimes produce dreamers.
As for “Homo Antarcticus,” which I think is the best poem I’ve written so far, it questions the values of modern civilization, based on one of the best-known events of the Heroic Age of great discoveries, which is Ernest Shackleton’s ill-fated expedition to the South Pole, where 23 men who miraculously survived extreme weather conditions, hunger, and depression, couldn’t survive normality after returning. This is the Antarctic species, “Homo Antarcticus,” which, after facing the majestic and mysterious forces of nature, finds it difficult to adapt to the daily trivialities of living.
Interviewer: In the spring of this year, from the authors of the eight competing countries, you were declared the “European Poet of Freedom.” What does this award mean to you?
Luljeta Lleshanaku: From confronting the literary world in recent years, I’ve understood that today’s reader seeks something different from poetry: something lighter, more entertaining, that approaches a “small talk,” preferably with a bit of humor and irony. And you can’t judge tastes; they come as a result of unavoidable social and cultural processes; they just are what they are! But, I’m not inclined toward this kind of poetry and have thought that I might be somewhat out of fashion and too late to change. So, it was initially a test with myself, plus the fact that it was the second time I reached the finals of this competition: the first time was ten years ago. And it was a tough competition, involving the Germanic languages, Spain, Norway, Slovenia, Ukraine, and Poland itself…
In reality, the epithet of “freedom” doesn’t say much because I think almost every poem, in one way or another, touches on the theme of freedom. So, every poet, regardless of theme and form, can be a candidate. But careful reading, reasoning, and especially the credibility of the jury members (including Olga Tokarczuk, who is one of my favorite writers) are what give importance to this award.
Interviewer: And since we were talking about the Freedom Award, what is freedom to you, to a woman, to a poet? What is freedom in itself?
Luljeta Lleshanaku: Our generation was formed in communism, in the extreme conditions of lack of freedom, starting with freedom of speech. Communism, in theory, propagated freedom as liberation from property, but the elimination of property not only didn’t make people better but led to what Churchill calls “an equal sharing of misery.” And knowing the lack of freedom, I think we are aware of the freedoms gained, but it’s hard for us to understand the boundaries of freedom, that your freedom ends where the other’s begins. Therefore, post-totalitarian countries lean more towards anarchy than democratic societies.
On a personal level, I think absolute freedom doesn’t exist. To me, freedom is like hourglasses, where you must empty one half to fill the other. In other words, when you gain one kind of freedom, you lose another. You can only be free if the ocean has thrown you onto a lost island or a corner of the world with no hope of return, as happened with Shackleton’s expedition to the South Pole, described in the poem “Homo Antarcticus,” from which I quote these lines: “We had nothing left. We belonged to no one. / A completely new species: HOMO ANTARCTICUS. / Scientific proof that ‘forgotten’ and ‘free’ / are exactly the same thing.” Therefore, one of my oldest poems, titled “The Ramblings of Freedom,” ends with these lines: “I freed myself from the illusion of freedom / finally I’m free!”
But what I think makes some people freer than others is the way they challenge themselves, the choices they make regardless of the consequences, in defense of their beliefs, principles, and worldview. So, freedom gives you personality.
Interviewer: In 1995, you asked me in an interview with “Voice of Youth”: “Do you think you belong to any creative school? What is your relationship with the previous Albanian writers?” Let me ask you the same today.
Luljeta Lleshanaku: Each of us seeks to be unique, so much so that comparisons, even with the best, are not taken as compliments. But, no matter how much I claim otherwise, I surely have a connection with tradition or my contemporaries, even though I’m not aware of it. The point is that when I appeared on the literary scene in the mid-’90s, Albania had just opened culturally, and we, as a generation, came as an aesthetic upheaval. The immediate exposure to all the foreign literary developments that had taken place in the meantime in the world was almost disorienting, and there was no time for slow and natural consumption. I mean, it was too late to become part of a school, but too early to rise above the schools. In such circumstances, the best thing would be to trust a wild instinct, something that comes out of itself with force from within.
But what has helped me the most, I think, has been the material, the unique experiences, the personal history, which is actually the history of three generations under communism, so thematic innovations. Such dramas produce their own aesthetics, architecture, and ideas. The material determines the form, not the other way around.
Interviewer: What’s the biggest challenge for a poet? Maybe this is related to the next question…
Luljeta Lleshanaku: The biggest challenge for me has been: will I be able to make my voice heard? So much is written in our time, even in our small Albania, in a time when interest in poetry is waning, that it seems almost impossible to get the right attention. But this isn’t just my challenge or that of women who write; it’s a challenge that everyone who chooses to engage in creativity faces. So, it’s a challenge with oneself, where, naturally, luck plays a significant role. To make your voice heard, you need to be original, fresh, surprising, believable, and above all, powerful, especially for us who write in a small language and have to pass through hundreds of filters to communicate in other languages. But how much does all this depend on you?
Interviewer: In our societies, a talented woman must have a problem. You know the saying: “Have children or become a nun!” In your literary journey, have you felt this misogynistic atmosphere?
Luljeta Lleshanaku: Perhaps the best advice I got at the beginning was from my husband, who told me: “Think like a man!” You can interpret this in many ways: don’t bother with trivialities, get out of the feminist framework of things, underestimate some of the family obligations that hold you back, take things to the end, don’t be satisfied with little, etc., etc. Dismissive or not, history gives men the right to think this way, because few women have managed to make it on their own. The biggest problem hasn’t been dealing with prejudice, but the status of being a woman, with obligations that I can’t avoid even today, when life has become easier for everyone.
In this regard, my mother was my model, a strong, vital woman, a man-woman, who managed to raise two children on her own and never gave up. As a woman, I never expected anyone to take off my coat or light my cigarette (to put it in clichés). But in a country where competition rules are flagrantly violated, thus the very meaning of competition, misogyny is the least of the problems.
Interviewer: Since we’re at this point, I’ll take the liberty to delve a bit deeper into the conversation. Every day we see a troubled world, where society boils with feminist and anti-feminist cries, where a kind of fear is felt among men of ‘losing quotas’ in society, where some people or various organizations raise their voices in defense of the rights of non-heterosexual people and others shout against them, where a significant number of young people view marriage with fear, and the institution of the family is in crisis. What’s your viewpoint?
Luljeta Lleshanaku: The truth is that all societies owe a lot to women; Albanian society not less. That’s why the saying of Madeleine Albright makes a lot of sense to me: “In hell, there is a place for every woman who does not help another woman!” But, the debts, the obligations of hundreds of years, cannot be repaid within fifty years, so by force and from above, as is happening with the favorable policies for women around the world. Nothing imposed from above and not as a result of a natural process brings a correction of things but only creates other injustices and, consequently, other dissatisfactions. You can’t establish justice with unjust methods. If you give way to fair competition, then everything falls into place naturally. So, I think your observation is accurate, but it requires a more detailed treatment.
Protests, for any reason, do good for society. But on a broader level, I think the problem lies elsewhere: the moral crisis, which hasn’t been present even during the world wars, and is reflected in literature and art. A young person, one of those who used to go and fight in wars, had ideals, causes, today has only goals, small, tangible, like: a good job, a house, a hefty bank account, a car, vacations, etc. Pragmatism in life has gone to the extreme, wiping out its magic. In this regard, we’re lost generations and perhaps even more so those who will come after us because we don’t have anything important to fight for.
Interviewer: In one of your poems, you write: “Stars are easier to explain than people.” Would you attempt to explain the Albanian person?
Luljeta Lleshanaku: At the moment we’re talking, I still don’t have the clarity and peace needed to
talk about Albania and Albanians because I’ve only been away for four months, and I believe this time for good. I’ve lived through the communist period to the core because I was born in 1968, in a family where men would go to work with two sets of clothes on because they could be arrested. I also lived through post-communism, which not only didn’t fix anything but degraded even what little communism couldn’t destroy: hope! But it would be naive to blame the regimes, history, politicians, treating the matter as fate, thus removing part of the responsibility from ourselves. Playing the role of the victim cannot continuously be a form of exoneration. Thirty years after the fall of communism, we’re surviving, not living. In one of my poems, “With Fate Written on My Face,” I say: “And the one marked by survival / will continue to feed on its cubs like the polar bear / without realizing that the weather has warmed up.” So, our problem is that we continue to act with the survivor’s mentality, with 24-hour visions, unable to foresee the future. To make long-term and solid choices, you must rise above personal interest, to step over yourself. And since we’re in the days of the international football championship, let me make a comparison: a society should function like a football team, where each has their role, but you must know when to pass the ball to the other, in service of the common good, which is the team’s victory.
Interviewer: You’ve been translated into many languages: how is the Albanian reader compared to the foreign reader?
Luljeta Lleshanaku: I think it’s more about the generation than the place or language: our generation, I think, is a very good reader because it comes from a classic formation, from intensive and comprehensive reading. Naturally, the best readers are the writers themselves, who still have enough intuition to understand good literature. And the Eastern European reader, who is also the most skeptical reader, continues to be the sharpest reader, in my opinion. It doesn’t matter if they express themselves or how they express themselves, it’s simply a terrain that, even by inertia, boils, is hungry to know and learn. There’s literary life, debates, and competition. In a way, the same can be said about Albania. So, for me, the most unpredictable reader is the Albanian reader. Even for a simple reason: how can you entice the interest of an audience with whom you share the same history and experiences?
Interviewer: By reading your poems, a hierarchy of souls and lives is created, overturned in the other metaphor, “similar to Chagall’s metaphors,” Sasha Dugdale would say, in “Poetry Nation Review” (38). Flattering, isn’t it? How do you deal with such compliments or with positive critiques like in “The New York Times,” “The Guardian,” etc.?
Luljeta Lleshanaku: I don’t know what to say about this… Reviews are important in the West, in large cultures, because the big market needs orientation. Two lines in an important newspaper are very helpful. In Great Britain and the United States, they have the ‘Poetry Society,’ which recommends a few books each year as the best. In Germany, in recent years, it’s been the ‘Academy of Poetry and Language’ (Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung), which announces the recommended books of the year as the best, including those coming through translations. So, there’s an organized attention that especially helps poetry. Reviews are always a surprise because they come from people you haven’t personally met and may never meet. Of course, you’re very happy when they say good things, even if you don’t agree with the interpretation. But I can’t get out of my head how criticism destroyed Tennessee Williams at a certain point, the same criticism that once raised him to the sky. I mean, everyone needs the popularity that criticism gives, but being uncompromising, you never know what it’ll be: good news or bad news.
Interviewer: What is time to Luljeta Lleshanaku?
Luljeta Lleshanaku: Every time I return to the house I grew up in, it seems like nothing has happened since then: every detail from my childhood occupies space and time in my memory, while everything I’ve done in the past 34 years can be said in two lines. Scientists acknowledge the integral role joy, sadness, fear, and other emotions play in how we experience the passage of time. Similarly, if we travel to a place for the first time, the journey takes much longer than when we return on the same road. It’s the new things for the eye that make the journey seem longer; the information, the emotion it conveys, or time is simply an illusion. When the knowledge cycle ends, then begins the period of “return,” that period of life that simply repeats itself and seems very short, even though it may last longer than the first.
Naturally, when you’re young, you don’t think about all this, but when you approach fifty, you become aware of the life you have left and all those things you wanted to do but don’t have enough time, and here comes an important turn, a state of alarm, where you ruthlessly remove from yourself everything unnecessary, every relationship that delays you.
Interviewer: Based on the element of time, it’s natural to ask: in which period would you have liked to live, and why? I’m also intrigued by this question because you seem somewhat ‘out of time.’ I say this because, unlike many people who are active on social media or even a more “fanatic” group that has squared their lives on the cold screens of technology, you seem outside this virtual reality, which has taken on frightening proportions.
Luljeta Lleshanaku: First of all, I have a very bad relationship with technology: even an ATM or the drink vending machines in public places annoy me. They’re robots that require a robotic reaction from you. Anything that works arbitrarily, not through reason, scares me (I just told you that I’ve never learned anything by heart). And just one wrong command, one number, one letter, and life gets complicated in ways you can’t imagine!
As for social networks, I see them, primarily, as a need for socialization. I have a very reserved nature; as a child, I liked being alone, I have few friends; I can communicate with them once a week or once in three years, it doesn’t matter, because I know they’re there (everything happens in the mind after all). And to suddenly socialize with hundreds of people on Facebook seems to go against my nature. Out of fashion, just like you say, when promotion and connections take on primary importance…
I don’t know what era I could place myself in… I won’t go further, but I’d prefer to live in the ’30s. This period, I think, was the most enlightened, open-minded, and classy era in Albanian history. I’d gladly cope with the slow pace of events, travels with carriages, mail that comes once a month, gramophones playing the same record, and a kind of light snobbery that suits a society that has just begun to create its own identity.
Interviewer: I’ll quote one of your poems:
“Sunday Bells
My soul
Clashes like the tongue against the metallic sides of the bell.
Do you hear it?
It’s the Sunday bell
It’s the bell of the great Sunday mass
When people hear sermons about a sinless life
And remember to bring flowers to the graves.”
Besides what the poem conveys, I have some questions: What were your Sundays like in your childhood?
Luljeta Lleshanaku: They were the most sterile days of the week, especially in winter. Every time I think of Sundays, they all merge into one: the cauldron where the week’s clothes boiled, and the foam that spilled over the kerosene stove; the football matches on the radio in the afternoons and the monotonous and almost sleepy voice of the commentator; the chorus of turkeys, which would be slaughtered for the New Year but were bought a month earlier to fatten up, and the monotonous crackling of the wood burning in the stove. Even now, when I remember it, I’m overwhelmed by endless boredom, one of those kinds of boredom, a feeling of nothingness, that leads some people to suicide.
Interviewer: What’s the scent that brings you closer to the little Luljeta?
Luljeta Lleshanaku: The scent of tomatoes in the garden in front of the house. I even have a poem about it, “The Tomato Garden,” which I associate with early erotic curiosity, experienced with my peers there, in a corner, during summer evenings.
Interviewer: What would you tell your younger self today?
Luljeta Lleshanaku: If you only knew how unserious this world is…
Interviewer: Your childhood was troubled: if you could, what would you erase forever from that time?
Luljeta Lleshanaku: I thought about it, but I’m afraid I can’t remove anything because it’s like removing a brick: with it, all the others will fall, and I won’t know who I am then. All are consequences and continuations of each other.
Interviewer: What does the sound of the bell symbolize for you?
Luljeta Lleshanaku: In Zug, the bells rang almost every hour of the day, and to me, each of them sounded like a warning. Reminding people of death several times a day, so the inevitable end, in a way, keeps them from themselves. Naturally, this is the reflection of someone from outside, but for the locals, it might be just a routine, like washing hands.
Interviewer: Some people see cemeteries as the place of big questions, and some others as the place where the final point of a person’s life is put. What do they symbolize for you, and are you afraid of death?
Luljeta Lleshanaku: I think the greatest gift given to humans is ignorance, not knowing certain things, including not knowing the moment of death. Imagine if we knew more than we know, including the frightening surprises of fate, including our death, how each of our worlds would be turned upside down…
I’m very shaken by the speed with which we send off the dead, as if we can’t wait to hand them over and return to our lives. Preferably within the day! (I even have a poem about this). But this is entirely contradictory to what I think about death, as a beginning, not as the end of a journey. Otherwise, what meaning does a life loaded with toil and suffering have? If humans are such an intelligent programming (as it turned out with genetic discoveries) and not just a random product of the universe, then we must look for a reason just as intelligent beyond this. This is where my fear of death lies, which is a fear of the unknown, the greatest unknown we have to face, completely alone. Curiosity about the world comes one day and is consumed (now faster than ever thanks to the speed of information and freedom of movement), gradually giving way to curiosity about the next world. I often talk with theologians, but they can’t go much beyond what’s written in the holy books, with descriptions that we are left to interpret. And the deeper you delve into such reflections, the more insignificant and futile all the usual preoccupations seem, even the need to write…
Interviewer: What is sin, and what would a sinless life be for you?
Luljeta Lleshanaku: Simply put: “Don’t do to others what you don’t want done to you!” The measure of sin is the measure of the pain we cause others. And I don’t know what a sinless life could be like because all of us, some more and some less, are weak, sinful. But what makes the difference, I think, is reflection, a sense of guilt. It’s a very bitter feeling; you’d rather die, much heavier than being a victim.
Interviewer: Do you have an inspiration or admiration model in life?
Luljeta Lleshanaku: I can list a series of famous figures like: Wernher Von Brown, Henry Matisse, Viktor Frankl, Napoleon Bonaparte, Theodore Roosevelt, Pope Francis, Abraham Lincoln, Leonardo Da Vinci, Francis of Assisi, Muhammad Ali, Marlon Brando, King Zog, etc. But those who morally help me in difficult moments are ordinary people whom I know closely. They’re not perfect, they have a hundred flaws, but they’re among the most honest, righteous, and dignified people I’ve known: my uncles and my aunt!
Interviewer: A book that has marked your life? Your favorite poet?
Luljeta Lleshanaku: The book “Lavorare stanca” by Cesare Pavese, which came to me at the right moment, had an extraordinary impact on me. My favorite poet, without the slightest doubt, is Yehuda Amichai.
Interviewer: And by coincidence, we have some of Amichai’s poems in this issue of the magazine. But, besides poetry, what else has fed Luljeta’s world?
Luljeta Lleshanaku: Film. Poetry is what I can do in the absence of making movies. Film is what I wanted to do in life! But if I talk about this passion now, it sounds as ridiculous as talking about high school platonic loves, which existed more in our minds than in reality.
Interviewer: And to close this beautiful conversation: what can we expect from you in the near future?
Luljeta Lleshanaku: I don’t know, I sincerely don’t know. I started a novel four years ago… Here and there, I have unfinished poems for another collection, I also have sketches for a book of essays… I don’t know what will happen with them, because books, like people, have their fate. It has happened to me that I’ve withdrawn and burned a manuscript just before publication. And it turned out to be the right thing because otherwise, I wouldn’t have written “A Child of Nature,” which was a significant turning point for me.
Interviewer: Thank you for the conversation and for everything you’ve given us so far!
Luljeta Lleshanaku: Thank you very much for everything!
