Illustrious guests

So, the other day, just when I had organised for the babysitter to keep the boys all afternoon so I could plug away at this gigantic translation that I will never get finished on time . . . Francesco says "Ylljet is coming to Bari this afternoon with his wife and wants to come over to visit us." Oh great, my productive afternoon disappeared just like that - poof! Not that I wasn't happy at the thought of seeing Ylljet again. He is a great guy and, apparently, has had success as a writer of short stories since we last met. It's just that I get my brain all set on a particular course and when things get derailed it takes me a couple of minutes to reorganise . . . I don't think I'm rigid or limited or anything miserable like that. I just need the time to say, oh, okay, things are going to be different than I thought they were . . . ok . . . new plan!

Anyway, Ylljet Alickaj is a very nice Albanian man who we met several years ago while Francesco and his brother (Gaetano, the painter/sculptor) were organising an Italian-Albanian art exhibit (called Radio Tirana Fax) in Tirana. I don't know exactly how the contact was made, but Ylljet was briefly the Albanian Minister of Culture (maybe around 1997) and so was no doubt involved in cultural stuff in general. Since then we have kept in touch and he has come to visit us several times, for work or when just passing through. He has published a few books of short stories and a film was made based on one of his stories. The film was called Slogans and was a French-Albanian production. It apparently won an award at Cannes! His most recent book is called "I Compagni di Pietra" ("Stone Comrades" in English, don't ask me the original title in Albanian!) and it seems that another film is going to be made based on one of the stories in this book. He's hoping to make some money this time, because the French producer of Slogans had him sign away his rights and he has earned nothing from it.

We had a nice visit -- I spent the whole afternoon cleaning the house and making a chocolate cake for them. But, it was worth it because they are extremely pleasant and interesting people and it was a pleasure to spend some time with them. In the evening they flew off to Germany where Ylljet was invited to speak at a library (or book fair?) about "Stone Comrades."

Some day I'll get around to my translation . . . :-)