Albanian Authors

Anton PASHKU

Anton Pashku (1938-1995) was born in Grazhdanik near Prizren of a peasant family from the Has Mountains. He worked as a journalist in Prishtina for some time and thereafter edited prose and drama for the Rilindja Publishing Company there. His experimental short stories, novels and plays, showing affinities with the works of George Orwell, Franz Kafka and Robert Musil, are subtle and masterful studies of the psyche. Pashku is a writer who appeals not to the broad masses of the public, but rather to the reader who relishes the hermetic observations and details of character analysis. It was the harsh political suppression of the first generation of Kosova Albanian prose writers in the late fifties that caused him to withdraw from the mainstream of literary production and create a reclusive world of his own.

Among Pashku's publications are: the short story collections Tregime, Prishtina 1961 (Short Stories); Kjasina, Prishtina 1973 (The Oozing); Lutjet e mbrëmjes, Prishtina 1978 (Evening Prayers); and the novel Oh, Prishtina 1971 (Oh), which is an exercise in style, a product of the grotesque, and something quite unique in Albanian literature. He is also the author of plays such as Sinkopa, Prishtina 1969 (Syncope), and Gof, Prishtina 1976 (Fever). Anton Pashku ranks among the best stylists in Albanian literature.