Overview

• The Suhrkamp prequel centers on Leman (Nini) Ypi, tracing a life from Ottoman‑era cosmopolitan cities through war to communist repression.
• Ypi reports finding a second Sigurimi file for a woman named Leman Ypi in Tirana’s archives, leaving open whether it reflects bureaucratic fiction or a different person who died in 1972.
• The narrative depicts the family’s targeting as liberals by Enver Hoxha’s regime, with imprisonment, forced labor and long surveillance shaping their fate.
• Scenes in Thessaloniki and Manastir evoke a multilingual Balkan world disrupted by nationalism, occupation forces and postwar state building.
• Ypi, an LSE scholar known for the bestseller “Frei,” writes in English and translates her work into Albanian.