Lindita Arapi was born in Lushnja in 1972. She studied at the University of Tirana in 1994 and began working as a journalist and moderator for Albanian television (TVSH). In 1996 she was awarded a fellowship as a ‘writer in residence' at the Heinrich Böll House (Düren, Germany) as well as a scholarship by the International Art Link (New York). She has also taken part in the ‘International Writing Program' of the University of Iowa as an Honorary Fellow in Writing. She finished her doctorate at the University of Vienna, and currently lives in Cologne (Germany). Lindita Arapi, who is among the leading female poets of the post-communist generation from Albania, has published the four following volumes of verse: Kufomë lulesh (Corpse of flowers, Tirana 1993), translated into Italian as Il cadavere fiorito (Brindisi 1993), Ndodhi në shpirt (It happened in my soul, Elbasan 1995), and Melodi të heshtjes (Melody of silence, Peja 1998).

Translator Robert Elsie (Vancouver, Canada, 1950) is a leading specialist in Albanian affairs. He is the author of thirty-five books on Albania and its culture, including literary translations from Albanian, and of many articles and research papers. Elsie studied at the University of British Columbia, graduating in 1972 with a degree in classical studies and linguistics. In the following years, he did postgraduate research at the Free University of Berlin, the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes and the University of Paris IV in Paris, the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies in Ireland and the University of Bonn, where he finished his doctorate in 1978 at the Linguistics Institute. From 1982 to 1987, he was employed by the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Bonn. Since that time he has worked as a freelance writer and conference interpreter, primarily for Albanian and German. He lives in the Eifel Mountains of Germany, not far from the Belgian border.

Weblinks:   www.elsie.de and www.albanianliterature.com