I’m a writer from Tirana, Albania. Still experimenting with my writing style, my stories put together elements of the real and the surreal, both faithful to human perceptions and emotions. I’m a lover of all art forms and an enthusiast of ‘Gesamtkunstwerk’, often trying to include in my writing colors, images, music patterns, and architectural structures.
My first book “Bar Sahara“, a collection of short stories, was published in 2021 with support from the National Center of Books and Readings, as the first-prize winner in prose for young writers.
My second book, the satirical-experimental novel, “Two weeks under the balloon” won the Kadare Prize in 2024.
My first short story was selected for the 2012 book anthology of ‘Europe in your Thoughts’ competition, Novi-Sad, Serbia, organized by the European Culture and Values Project Group. In 2013, I won the first prize for short stories in Prokult International Festival, Podujeve, Kosovo. I’m a winner in several Albanian national competitions, among others the Literary Festival for Young Writers, Fourth Edition, 2018.
In 2014, I wrote a movie script, which was selected and turned into a short movie in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, by the StudAVP Project, organized by art schools in the Balkans and Tempus Programme of the European Union. You can see the short movie here. I am also currently working on turning one of my stories into a short animated movie.
I get my shots of inspiration from the short stories of Buzzati and Donald Barthelme, the music of Pink Floyd and Nick Cave, and the cinema of Fellini and Tarkovsky.
I graduated in Business Informatics and work as a Business Manager at Lufthansa.