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Essays, Manifestos, Statements, Speeches, Maxims, Epistles, Diaristic Jottings, Narratives, Natural histories, Poems, Plays, Performances, Ramblings, Revelations, and all such ephemera as may appear necessary to bring society into a slight tremolo of confusion and fright at least.

Blood of the Quill

Azem Shkreli

Translated from the Albanian with an Introduction by Robert Elsie and Janice Mathie-Heck

A Bilingual Edition

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One of the greatest Kosova poets, Azem Shkreli was deeply involved in the struggle for liberation. He was born in the village of Shkrel in Western Kosova in 1938, and earned a degree in Albanian Language and Literature at the University of Prishtina. From 1960 to 1975, he was the director of the People’s Provincial Theater in Prishtina, and afterwards the director of the Kosova Film Studios, a position he held until he was expelled by the new Serb administration in 1991.

During the 1990s he had to travel to Germany because of his wife’s illness, but he ultimately chose not to stay with his family and returned to Prishtina, living alone as he continued the battle for Kosova rights. He died at the Prishtina airport on May 25, 1997, as he was returning to his homeland.

Shkreli is best known for his 10 verse collections, including The Buds, The Street of Angels, I Know a Word of Stone, From the Bible of Silence, and The Call of the Owl. This book contains substantial selections from six of those volumes.

Robert Elsie is a leading specialist in Albanian affairs, and has authored over 40 books, primarily on Albanian culture. Janice Mathie-Heck is a teacher, poet, translator, and editor living in Canada.