Like a Prisoner

Fatos Lubonja is a writer and editor of the quarterly journal Përpjekja [Endeavor], a representative of the Forum for Democracy, and a leading figure in Albania's political life. At twenty three, Lubonja was sentenced to seven years imprisonment for "agitation and propaganda" after police found his diaries, which contained criticisms of Enver Hoxha. He was later re- sentenced without trail and spent a total of 17 years in prison, much of it in solitary confinement. He was released in 1991. Lubonja's first book in English, Second Sentence: Inside the Albanian Gulag, was published to great acclaim by I. B. Tauris (2006) followed by False Apocalypse (Istros, 2015). Among his many literary prizes, he received the Alberto Moravia Prize for International Literature in 2002 and the Herder Prize for Literature in 2004 and the Prince Claus Award, 2015.