Guided by the thesis that literature can transform social reality, Tirana Modern draws on ethnographic and historical material to examine the public culture of reading in modern Albania. As its starting point, this book asks: How has Albanian literature and literary translation shaped social action during the longue durée of Albanian modernity?
Drawing on material collected through fieldwork with a community of readers, writers, and translators attached to the independent Albanian publisher Pika pa sipërfaqe (Point without Surface), Tirana Modern provides a tightly focused ethnography of literary culture in Albania that brings into relief the more general dialectic between social imagination and social reality as mediated by reading and literature.
Introduction: Writing the Relationship between Books and People
Chapter 1: One Hundred Years of Transformation
Chapter 2: Miracles of the Street
Chapter 3: In the Public Interest
Chapter 4: Reading Nearby
Chapter 5: Between Conflicting Systems
Conclusion: A Good Time to Read
Appendix. Pika pa sipërfaqe's Catalogue of Publications, November 2009–November 2021
Notes
References
Index
