Poetry
Gjuha e bukës
Not translated into English
Giuseppe Schirò Di Maggio · 1981
Synopsis
The poem that bears the title of the collection speaks of the Arbëresh parents who left Hora, their village, to look for work, and of the children who are told to learn “the language of bread”: the language of the ancestors does not open the door to a job, and speaking it does not earn a living. Against this calculation, the poet makes a request of his people: not to melt into the others, to remain apart and distinct, with their language and their customs. The whole volume turns on this link between what one speaks and what one eats.
Context
The book appeared in 1981 in Pristina, from the publisher Rilindja, far from Sicily where it was written: Ali Podrimja, a poet from Kosovo, oversaw its editing, and Rexhep Ismajli chose the pieces and wrote the afterword. The same year, the author published separately a collection placed under the image of the moth and the rust. Studies read in these poems a single concern, to keep the Arbëresh identity through language and culture, and link them to the history of the community, its customs and its sense of time. Three years earlier, his verse had already appeared in an anthology edited by Ismajli.
Who it is for
Poems in Arbëresh, the language of the Albanians of Sicily, which tell what it costs to keep it; no French translation.
Prizes and reception
Critics read in it the link between language and bread, which they consider the heart of its author's work.