Ornela Vorpsi

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Ornela Vorpsi (2006)

Ornela Vorpsi (* 1968 in Tirana ) is an Albanian artist and writer who lives in France and writes primarily in Italian .

life and work

Ornela Vorpsi attended the Academy of Arts in Tirana. She has lived outside Albania since 1991. Until 1997 she studied in Milan at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera . She graduated from the Université Paris VIII in Paris . Vorpsi's first works, such as her photographic monograph Nothing Obvious , dealt with visual art. She also wrote numerous short stories in Italian and French.

Her first novel The Eternal Life of the Albanians , which she wrote in Italian, first appeared in France in 2004. In it, she describes the childhood of Ormira, a girl who grew up in Albania during communist rule and whose father was imprisoned as a political prisoner. The girl suffers from her strictly socialist teacher and the patriarchal traditions of her home country. The book is partly autobiographical.

““ I just wanted to show the everyday life of an Albanian person who lived in the totalitarian state of Enver Hoxha . Until recently, literature in Albania was only made by people who were protected by the party. The people who were convicted had no voice in this country, and I am one of that kind of people. ""

Towards the end of the book, Ormira and her mother emigrate to Italy. Only then do they, like many other Albanians, become aware of their poverty. The novel closes with the words: They no longer want to know anything about the promised land. They understand that they are mortal there, but they don't want to die.

The book has not yet been published in Albania. Vorpsi has so far refused to have her books published there because she is not yet ready to face public criticism in Albania.

Her current novel The Hand That You Don't Bite is about the journey of an Albanian woman living in Paris to a friend in Sarajevo , and was also written in Italian.

Ornela Vorpsi has lived in Paris since 1997 and is also active as a photographer, painter and video artist. In 2018 she had her first major exhibition in Tirana .

Awards

Ornela Vorpsi has received the Italian literary prizes Premio Grinzane Cavour , Premio Viareggio , Premio Elio Vittorini , Premio città di Vigevano and the French Prix ​​méditerranée des Lycéens .

Publications

  • Nothing Obvious , photographic monograph, Scalo, 2001
  • Il paese dove non si muore may , 2004
    • The eternal life of the Albanians. Paul Zsolnay Verlag, Vienna 2007, from the Italian by Karin Fleischanderl, ISBN 978-3-552-05403-5
  • Buvez du cacao Van Houten! , Éditions Actes Sud, 2005
  • Vetri rosa , with Mat Collishaw and Philippe Cramer, Take 5, 2006
  • La mano che non mordi , Einaudi, 2007
    • The hand that you don't bite. Paul Zsolnay Verlag, Vienna 2010, from the Italian by Karin Krieger, ISBN 978-3-552-05498-1
  • Bevete cacao van Houten! , Einaudi, 2010
  • Fuorimondo , Einaudi, 2012
  • Ci-gît l'amour fou , Actes sud, 2012
  • Tu convoiteras , Gallimard, 2014
  • Viaggio intorno alla madre , Nottetempo, 2015

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. a b dradio.de: card box of Balkan stereotypes. Retrieved February 23, 2010 .
  2. ^ Robert Elsie : AlbanianLiterature.net. Accessed May 5, 2019 .
  3. Book review on Ö1. Archived from the original on September 8, 2007 ; Retrieved August 22, 2009 .
  4. Vincent WJ van Gerven Oei: How To Seduce an Artist-Prime Minister. In: Exit.al. April 29, 2018, accessed April 29, 2018 .