A Secret Family History: Lea Ypi

Albanian Lea Ypi has a talent for combining the personal and the political in history, exploring how we are all shaped by the societies and ideologies surrounding us. In her memoir Free. A Child and a Country at the End of History, she skillfully portrays her own childhood during the socialist regime of Enver Hoxha in the latter half of the 20th century, followed by the state’s collapse and civil war.

Ordinary humans in the midst of history is also the focus in her new book, Indignity: A Life Reimagined. An unknown photopgrah of her grandmother honeymooning in Mussolini’s Italy pops up on social media, making Ypi question everything she thought she knew about her family. Was her grandmother a Nazi collaborator? Or perhaps a Communist spy?

This is the beginning of a thorough examination of her grandmothers life, one that takes Ypi back to the Ottoman empire, to Greece and then Albania through alternating regimes and occupants.

Lea Ypi is a professor of political theory and philosophy at the London School of Economics. Her book Free was warmly received by both critics and readers, and is so far translated into 30 languages.

Writer and journalist Simen Ekern has published several books about European and Italian politics and history. He joins Ypi for a conversation about ordinary humans in the midst of history.

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