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A review by amyvl93
Free: Coming of Age at the End of History by Lea Ypi
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
4.0
<i>Free</i> was a chosen read by my book club and was definitely an eye-opener. Albania is not a country whose history I know a whole lot about and Ypi's memoir was a really interesting insight into life both pre-and-post the communist regime.
As a child Ypi was taught like other children to idealise their leaders and a version of history which taught the evils of both the West and the USSR in its imperialist views. She struggles with the fact they share a surname with a disgraced former politician, that her grandmother insists on speaking French in the house, that her family don't have a picture up of their leader Enver Hoxha like others and that any question about her parents past is shrugged away with the word 'biography'. So her world view is thrown into turmoil when protests lead to an almost overnight shift in how the country is run and numerous revelations about her family coming to life.
Reading about the transition through the eyes of a child was fascinating - the confusion over religion, once allowed then banned now allowed again and whether we should or should not believe in God. Her parents both becoming increasingly politically active, although from slightly differing sides of the political sphere. And then there are the darker sides - the fleeing to Italy of migrants crowding onto boats desperate to be let in only to be turned away again, an undercurrent of violence on the streets and the civil war after the collapse of the numerous pyramid schemes propping up the economy in 1997 which Ypi uses her teenage diary entries to narrrate.
On the whole this was a really interesting read - Ypi's writing is often very evocative (loved the sections about tourists smelling like suncream) if at times getting a little lost in the philosophy of it all (but as she is an academic in this area this is understandable).
As a child Ypi was taught like other children to idealise their leaders and a version of history which taught the evils of both the West and the USSR in its imperialist views. She struggles with the fact they share a surname with a disgraced former politician, that her grandmother insists on speaking French in the house, that her family don't have a picture up of their leader Enver Hoxha like others and that any question about her parents past is shrugged away with the word 'biography'. So her world view is thrown into turmoil when protests lead to an almost overnight shift in how the country is run and numerous revelations about her family coming to life.
Reading about the transition through the eyes of a child was fascinating - the confusion over religion, once allowed then banned now allowed again and whether we should or should not believe in God. Her parents both becoming increasingly politically active, although from slightly differing sides of the political sphere. And then there are the darker sides - the fleeing to Italy of migrants crowding onto boats desperate to be let in only to be turned away again, an undercurrent of violence on the streets and the civil war after the collapse of the numerous pyramid schemes propping up the economy in 1997 which Ypi uses her teenage diary entries to narrrate.
On the whole this was a really interesting read - Ypi's writing is often very evocative (loved the sections about tourists smelling like suncream) if at times getting a little lost in the philosophy of it all (but as she is an academic in this area this is understandable).