Novel
Why?!
Nga jeta në jetë, Pse?!
Sterjo Spasse · 1935
Synopsis
Gjon Zaveri is twenty-two, and the book is his diary. Educated in the city, returned among his own people, he questions the meaning of life and holds love to be an illusion; his meditations count more to him than events. He tries to resist the will of his parents, attached to the customs of the countryside, who want to marry him to a girl from the village, Afërdita. A difficult relationship with a married woman and the fate of Gjenci, his closest friend, weigh on his days.
Context
Its author has been teaching since 1932 in a village in the south of the country; the novel appears in 1935, and is immediately discussed. The narrator writes day by day, and, according to an Albanian critic, the author is more concerned in it with philosophical reflections than with facts; a great Russian novelist has left his mark on it, notably in the characters' ideas about women. The young man's conflict with his family, the author had lived himself. An English translation by Robert Wilton made it known outside Albania.
Who it is for
A short novel, kept in the form of a diary, more meditative than novelistic; no French translation, an English translation exists.
Prizes and reception
Much discussed from the time of its release, it is presented by its English translation as probably the first great Albanian novel.