Safar Book Group: Free – A Child and a Country at the End of History

Lea Ypi’s colourful, hectic coming-of-age story through the end Communism in the Balkans, published in 1922, has won several awards, made the shortlist for many more, and features on several ‘Best Book of the Year’ lists. The shock felt by the Young Pioneer and Stalin enthusiast as the Berlin Wall fell and her country, Albania, began a messy transition to join the “free markets” of the Western world provides a rich if somewhat dystopian brew. Ypi is a classy writer, and through the gripping narrative she’s able to prompt us to ask questions the relation between the personal and the political, and more deeply about the meaning of freedom … An interesting and potentially productive choice for the monthly book club.