Viola Isufaj is a writer and a lector of Contemporary Albanian Literature in the Department of Literature, Faculty of History and Philology, University of Tirana.

She is the author of several books (research, university texts and literary fiction as well as poesy), many scientific papers, and a number of texts for the high school. Her first novel, To Mr. M. a letter (2004) traits the lost of nowadays human communication. This novel was described as a “sweet, sober and luxurious fever”

Her family was persecuted by the totalitarian regime. She was a teenager when the totalitarian regime collapsed and metaphorically expressed these events in her second novel The Snake Saga, (2005). The third novel Nobody’s days was published in 2008 and followed by the publication of several cycles in poetry.

Viola Isufaj has also translated several pieces into Albanian, the most important of them, the poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay and parts of mythological Irish cycle.

She was born in the ancient city of Durres (in the old Illyria, Durrahchium) and she lives and works in Tirana the capital of Albania.

French

Viola Isufaj appartient à cette génération charnière, née à la fin de la dictature et ayant grandi dans ses dernières années. Adolescente au moment de l’effondrement du régime, elle a hérité de ses silences, de ses récits étouffés — d’autant plus qu’elle vient d’une famille d’opposants, durement persécutée. Son œuvre se situe à la frontière entre mémoire transmise et parole retrouvée. Elle écrit dans un monde post-totalitaire, mais dans une langue imprégnée de tout ce qui n’a pas pu être dit. C’est là que réside la singularité de sa voix.