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Biografi (Paperback)

by Lloyd Jones (Author)
2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Paperback: 208 pages
  • Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd; New edition edition (29 Sep 1994)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0140235051
  • ISBN-13: 978-0140235050
  • Product Dimensions: 19.8 x 12.8 x 1.2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 889,360 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Product Description

Under the long dictatorship of Enver Hoxha each Albanian citizen had a "biografi" - literally an account of their suitability as good socialists. A miscreant relative, a revisionist friend or acquaintance could lead to alterations in a person's "biografi" and often imprisonment. Lloyd Jones became fascinated with Albania through a weird neighbour who was an officially-designated "Friend of Tirana". He visited the country after Hoxha's death, and happened upon a pathetic figure, a dentist who had been kidnapped 30 years previously and was made to live his life as Hoxha's double. With his leader dead he was trying to find his way back to his old village but his extraordinary resemblance to the mad dictator meant many people wanted to kill him - or else believed that Hoxha had never died at all. Jones accompanied him on his sad, last journey and learnt about the extraordinary system of repression through official biography on the way.

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Customer Reviews

2 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
2.5 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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2.0 out of 5 stars Strange blend of fact and fiction...., 7 Oct 2009
This review is from: Biografi (Paperback)
I remember being on holiday in Corfu and being able to see the coast of Albania across the sea. I remember too the locals contempt for the place, although I could not place the exact reason for it. In Lloyd Jones's account of his trip to Albania this at least becomes clear - what emerges is a picture of somewhere with all the harshness of Siberia with none of the natural beauty! With the death of the authoritarian leader, Enver Hoxha, it is possible to imagine people jubilant in their new freedom, but beyond the destruction of statues faith in anything, including the future, seems in short supply. The inadequate systems all seem to have imploded or vanished, the only escape is a one-way boat trip to Italy.

As a portrait of a failed state the book certainly works - whatever attributes the Albanians might have are overwhelmed by the confusion and helpless of their desperate plight. But what the story is trying to say, its direction or goals, I am not so sure about. It simply rambles from place to place, encounter to encounter, one disjointed conversation follows another, all hopelessly tangled and nihilistic like the country itself! It could be argued that travelling in a strange land does indeed follow this pattern, but I think good travel writing is more coherent and rewarding.

The controversy mentioned on the back cover concerns what exactly is fact and what is fiction, and how the author chose to conceal the truth, something I was not aware of when I read it. (I won't go into details in case I spoil anyone's enjoyment of the book.) With Jones's other book, Mister Pip, this certainly was no problem - it was easy to accept the setting and the war as real and the characters and their adventures as fictional. Here, however, it does not work - I mean the story itself does not work, regardless of how it was created.
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3.0 out of 5 stars Life after Hoxha, 3 Aug 2009
By J. Dunlop "Jeannie" (Coleraine, N Ireland) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Biografi (Paperback)
If you know something about Albania but are curious about life there just after the fall of Enver then this is the book to read. Jones details the harsh life and environment of the people he meets as he searches for Hoxha's double. I couldn't put this book down.
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