Join our Book Club Discussion on Monday 11 April
Join us on Monday 11 April at 6.00pm in the Library, Richmond campus, for an open and free discussion of Lea Ypi’s book ‘FREE’ (link to free copy below).
In this unflinching memoir, Lea Ypi documents a childhood in the shadow of the oppressive Stalinist Albanian regime and an adulthood in the uncertainty and tumult that followed the fall of Communism.
“I never asked myself about the meaning of freedom until the day I hugged Stalin. From close up, he was much taller than I expected.”
Lea Ypi grew up in one of the most isolated countries on earth, a place where communist ideals had officially replaced religion. Albania, the last Stalinist outpost in Europe, was almost impossible to visit, almost impossible to leave. It was a place of queuing and scarcity, of political executions and secret police. To Lea, it was home. People were equal, neighbours helped each other, and children were expected to build a better world. There was community and hope.
Then, in December 1990, a year after the fall of the Berlin Wall, everything changed. The statues of Stalin and Hoxha were toppled. Almost overnight, people could vote freely, wear what they liked and worship as they wished. There was no longer anything to fear from prying ears. But factories shut, jobs disappeared and thousands fled to Italy on crowded ships, only to be sent back. Predatory pyramid schemes eventually bankrupted the country, leading to violent conflict. As one generation’s aspirations became another’s disillusionment, and as her own family’s secrets were revealed, Lea found herself questioning what freedom really meant.
Free is an engrossing memoir of coming of age amid political upheaval. With acute insight and wit, Lea Ypi traces the limits of progress and the burden of the past, illuminating the spaces between ideals and reality, and the hopes and fears of people pulled up by the sweep of history.
Contact Eunice Goes at goese@richmond.ac.uk if you have any questions.
Free [electronic resource] : coming of age at the end of history / Lea Ypi (copy this link to Chrome).
