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Coming of Age at the End of History

Lea Ypi (Autor)

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2022
304 Seiten
W. W. Norton & Company (Verlag)
978-0-393-86774-9 (ISBN)

Infos

Winner of the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje PrizeWinner of the Slightly Foxed Best First Biography AwardShortlisted for the Costa Biography Award Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction Shortlisted for the Gordon Burn PrizeNamed a Best Book of the Year by the New Yorker, Washington Post, Financial Times, Guardian, Times Literary Supplement, Foreign Affairs, Public Books, and Sunday TimesIn a memoir that is by turns "e;bitingly, if darkly, funnyand truly profound"e; (Max Strasser, New York Times), Lea Ypi reflects on "e;freedom"e; as she recounts living through the end Communism in the Balkans as a child."e;Beguiling[A] primer on how to live when old verities turn to dust."e; Charles King, Washington PostFamily and nation formed a reliable bedrock of security for precocious 11-year-old Lea Ypi. She was a Young Pioneer, helping to lead her country toward the future of perfect freedom promised by the leaders of her country, the Peoples Socialist Republic of Albania. Then, almost overnight, the Berlin Wall fell and the pillars of her society toppled. The local statue of Stalin, whom she had believed to be a kindly leader who loved children, was beheaded by student protestors.Uncomfortable truths about her familys background emerged. Lea learned that when her parents and neighbors had spoken in whispers of friends going to university or relatives dropping out, they meant something much more sinister. As she learned the truth about her familys past, her best friend fled the country. Together with neighboring post-Communist states, Albania began a messy transition to join the free markets of the Western world: a dystopia of pyramid schemes, organized crime, and sex trafficking. Her father, despite his radical left-wing convictions, was forced to fire workers; her mother became a conservative politician on the model of Margaret Thatcher. Leas typical teen concerns about relationships and the future were shot through with the existential: the nation was engulfed in civil war.Ypis outstanding literary gifts enable her to weave together this colorful, tumultuous coming-of-age story in a time of social upheaval with thoughtful, fresh, and invigorating perspective on the relation between the personal and the political, and on deep questions about freedom: What does freedom consist of, and for whom? What conditions foster it? Who among us is truly free?

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 18.1.2022
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Biografien / Erfahrungsberichte
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen
• Schlagworte: Albania • albanian civil war • aleksander meksi • communism • freedom • Italy • jospeh stalin • Liberalism • peoples republic of albania • political theory • Politics • ramiz alia • sali berisha • Socialism • Soviet Union • student protests
• ISBN-10: 0-393-86774-9 / 0393867749
• ISBN-13: 978-0-393-86774-9 / 9780393867749