Biography

Born in Elbasan, Albania, LULJETA LLESHANAKU began publishing her work in 1991 after the overthrow of the Stalinist regime. Her critically acclaimed books of poetry are The Sleepwalker’s Eyes (1993); Sunday Bells (1994); Half-Cubism (1996); Yellow Marrow: New and Selected Poems (2001), for which she won the Albanian National Book Award; and Child of Nature (2008). In 2002, New Directions published her first collection of translations in English: Fresco: Selected Poetry of Luljeta Lleshanaku; her second translated title, Child of Nature, was published in 2010. Other English translations of her poems have appeared in Grand Street, New Letters, Pleiades, Fence, Tin House, Pool, and Modern Poetry in Translation. Her work has also been translated into German, French, Italian, and other languages.

HENRY ISRAELI is the author of New Messiahs (Four Way Books, 2002) and Praying to the Black Cat (Del Sol, 2010), as well as the editor and co-translator of Fresco: the Selected Poetry of Luljeta Lleshanaku (New Directions, 2002). Awarded fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Canada Council on the Arts, and a residency at the MacDowell Colony, his poetry and translations have appeared in numerous journals such as Grand Street, The Iowa Review, Quarterly West, Tin House, Fence, Verse and elsewhere. He is the founder of Saturnalia Books.

SHPRESA QATIPI is a professor of English at Tirana University. In addition to the poems of Luljeta Lleshanaku, she has also translated and published short stories, essays, and articles for the Eurolindja Publishing House (in Albania) and the Soros Foundation.