Illyria was the name of part of the western Balkans in ancient times. Given its turbulent history then and in subsequent centuries, when Viola, in Shakespeare’s ‘Twelfth Night’ asks ‘…what should I do in Illyria?’ the sensible answer might be to run away while you have the chance.
Viola, of course, does no such thing. Nor did Morelle Smith, whose time in Illyria’s modern day counterpart, Albania, is recorded in ‘Tirana Papers’.
Smith worked for some time with an organisation involved in development work associated with building and re-building the infrastructure of a country emerging from a ‘post-communist’ present into a functioning state.
Smith’s concerns, however, merge the political and the personal. She brings to these recollections and impressions a poet’s sensibility in which the ever-present past accompanies both her daily work and social life and influences her views of her own changing situation and that of the people she works with and for.
There’s a lyric quality in much of Smith’s writing, as one might expect from a practicing poet, which is frequently potent, as in her descriptions of the landscapes through which she travels, and less expectedly when she writes of the places where she lived during her time in Albania. Smith clearly has a deep, mainly affectionate relationship with Albania and it people, and communicates this well.
Although she worked for an NGO (non-governmental organisation) during her time in Albania, Smith’s recollections are mercifully free of the acronyms and linguistic shorthand so often used by such institutions. Those seeking geo-political analysis, economic forecasts or detailed history should look elsewhere, although Smith is clearly aware of the country’s past and includes by way of epilogue an account of meeting Ismail Kadare, Albania’s most well-known contemporary poet, now living in exile.
However, as the scattered writings of junior officers and the literate rank-and-file are often of more value and interest than those of generals in retirement, so this ground-level view of a country with a fascinating past and diverse culture, at a time of considerable change and upheaval is of real worth, not only for its writing but also for its insights.
'Tirana Papers' by Morelle Smith Kairos 2013 £ 6.99 isbn; 978 0 9552896 9 9