Biografi

by Lloyd Jones (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2008

  $3.42

  When Biografi was first published, it was met first with enormous critical acclaim - only to become the centre of a heated controversy. Was it fact or fiction? Had Lloyd Jones concocted his story of life in the new Albania? Or was it travel literature as its publishers insisted? Equal parts travelogue, political reportage and bizarre mystery novel, Lloyd Jones crosses Albania as it reinvents itself - a volatile, surreal wonderland where nothing is quite as it seems.

• Used

  Paperback
  1994

  $3.28

  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.

• New

  Paperback
  1994

  $22.20