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Free: A Child and a Country at the End of History
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About This Book
For precocious 11-year-old Lea Ypi, Albania's Soviet-style socialism held the promise of a preordained future, a guarantee of security among enthusiastic comrades. That is, until she found herself clinging to a stone statue of Joseph Stalin, newly beheaded by student protests. Communism had failed to deliver the promised utopia. One's "biography"—class status and other associations long in the past—put strict boundaries around one's individual future. When Lea's parents spoke of relatives going to "university" or "graduating," they were speaking of grave secrets Lea struggled to unveil. And when the early '90s saw Albania and other Balkan countries exuberantly begin a transition to the "free market," Western ideals of freedom delivered chaos: a dystopia of pyramid schemes, organized crime, and sex trafficking. With her elegant, intellectual, French-speaking grandmother; her radical-chic father; and her staunchly anti-socialist, Thatcherite mother to guide her through these disorienting times, Lea had a political education of the most colorful sort—here recounted with outstanding literary talent. Now one of the world's most dynamic young political thinkers and a prominent leftist voice in the United Kingdom, Lea offers a fresh and invigorating perspective on the relation between the personal and the political, between values and identity, posing urgent questions about the cost of freedom.
Reviews
"Detailing the absurdities of Hoxha's regime from a child's perspective, Ypi pulls off the remarkable feat of emphasizing their cruelty with a light and often humorous touch ..."
"an electric narrative of personal and political reckoning, suffused with sharp cultural critique, that underscores history's contentious relationship with independence and truth."
"How delightful to read a book about Albania that doesn't cite the country's obsession with Norman Wisdom, but instead has its own jet-black humour ..."
"Her parents and the grandmother who helped raise her are her main characters, lovingly and vividly described."
"Ypi's memoir is gloriously readable."
"The point of view of a child, for whom weirdness is normal and small things loom large, is a good one for examining how the death throes of a failing despotism seep into the tiniest corners of its subjects' lives."
"Eleven-year-old Lea tries her best to interpret the events unfolding around her, and readers are left to decode her impressions ..."
"Lea Ypi, a politics professor at the London School of Economics, wanted to write a thoughtful book about concepts of freedom."
"Ypi's experiences and perspective are invaluable, especially for politically minded readers dreaming up the future."
"The author's narrative voice is stunning, expertly balancing humor, pathos, and deep affection for the characters and places that defined her past."
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