Child of Nature

by Luljeta Lleshanaku, Henry Israeli (Translator), Shpresa Qatipi (Translator)

In my house praying was considered a weakness,

like making love.

And like making love

it was followed by a long night

of fear,

so alone with the body.

         —Luljeta Lleshanaku


Lleshanaku belongs to the first “post-totalitarian” generation of Albanian poets. Child of Nature is her second poetry collection in English. Here she turns to the fallout of her country’s past and its relation to herself and her family. Through intense, powerful lyrics, she explores how these histories intertwine and influence her childhood memories and the retelling of her family’s stories. Sorrow, death, imprisonment, and desire are some of the themes that echo deeply in Lleshanaku’s beautiful poems, poems that Peter Constantine has called “contemporary classics of world literature.” Of her work, Albanian novelist Ridvan Dibra writes, “When you close her book, the images don’t leave you. They cleave you open like a leopard’s paw, and enter into you. Once inside they create their own life, a second life, vastly different from the original. What more can we expect from real poetry, from true art?”

Genres: Poetry

108 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Donald Armfield]

Another powerful collection by this magical poet. If you're a fan of poetry then pick up a copy of this.
Here are my overall favorites:

*Yellow Book
*Old News
*Regarding Hypermetropia
*Irreversible Landscapes
*A Pair of Sandals Under a Tree
*Tranzit
*Understanding a Journey
*A Question of Numbers
*Flashback (1)
*In The Absent of Water
*The Man Without Land
*The Television Owner

[Yumi]

Really stunning, moving poetry. In the backdrop is a complicated and disturbing history of Albania under Communism, but the foci of the poems are the people Lleshanaku met, loved, wondered about, etc.

[Hans Ostrom]

I'm so glad I tracked down this book by the only Albanian poet I've read so far. What a great collection--mature, subtle but accessible, wide ranging in its interests, often personal but not self absorbed. She was born in 1968 into house arrest under a Stalinist regime & so was unable to attend school or publish her poetry until the 90s. So I'd say her poetry is hard-earned. One of the best poetry books I've read in a long, long time.

[Audrey]

These are very deep, complicated poems that swirl around the issues the author faced growing up in a communist country. She is a child of her 'nature', her environment.

[Wojtek Konieczny]

9/10