Balkanology  ::  Explore Southeast Europe

Albania - The Bradt Travel Guide  (3rd edition published May 2008) - Gillian Gloyer

This is one of the best of Bradt's Balkan guides, and is ideal if you are visiting Albania for more than a short trip. The author has spent a lot of time in Albania and clearly knows the country well. Make sure to get the current edition, as it contains substantial extra material.

Tirana In Your Pocket

This city guide is the most comprehensive source of information about the Albanian capital that you're likely to come across in English (and probably in any other language). You can purchase it online, download a free copy in PDF format, or pick it up at a number of outlets in Tirana. IYP also produces a guide to the northern city of Shkodra.

The Accursed Mountains: Journeys in Albania - Robert Carver

Capitalism in Albania meant Western patterns of consumption, not of production. Rich countries were rich, and that was that, immutably; it was thus their duty to help by giving money, food, trucks and clothes to poor countries like Albania, so they too could become rich.

An account of the author's travels around Albania in the chaotic years of the mid-1990s, just before it became even more chaotic in 1997. His adventures are entertaining enough, but his relentlessly negative opinions of the Albanian people become tiresome after a while. Many of his criticisms may be justifiable, but at times he seems to be critical just for the sake of it, as when he lists some names that an educated Albanian has never heard of - is it really so terrible to be unaware of FR Leavis or George Steiner? Several reviewers who know Albania well have suggested that parts of the story have been exaggerated or even simply made up.

Spring Flowers, Spring Frost - Ismail Kadare:

'A heist, a bank robbery,' he muttered, as if talking to himself. 'Strange-sounding words... our ears aren't used to them, are they?'

Kadare is Albania's most famous writer by far; this is one of his more recent novels. The central character is an artist whose peaceful life in a small town is disturbed both by the chaos of post-Communist Albania and by the unexpected reappearance of an ancient tradition. Although many reviewers praise the novel highly, I must admit that it didn't make much impression on me. The protagonist seems to be constantly confused, wondering, drowsy; his vagueness extends to the story as a whole. And I really don't know why Leonid Brezhnev makes an appearance near the end. As with most of Kadare's novels, this has been translated from Albanian to English via French rather than directly, which probably doesn't help.