Anita
Likmeta

Anita Likmeta is an award-winning writer whose work explores memory, power, and the hidden legacies of twentieth-century Europe. Her debut novel, Le favole del comunismo (The Fairy Tales of Communism, 2024), received major literary recognition in Italy, including the Viareggio-Rèpaci International Prize and the Giuseppe Dessì Literary Award. Her second book, L’aquila nera (The Black Eagle, 2025), is a memoir that revisits a suppressed history of fascism in Albania. She was born in Durrës at the twilight of Albania’s communist regime. In 1997, at the age of eleven, she emigrated to Italy, entering a long process of negotiating identity between the pull of belonging and the experience of otherness. She completed her secondary education at a Liceo Classico, Italy’s rigorous classical high school, with a curriculum rooted in ancient languages, literature, and philosophy. She later pursued advanced studies in Literature and Philosophy at Sapienza University of Rome. Her academic trajectory was shaped by a specialization in Medieval, Modern, and Contemporary History, culminating in a dissertation on the political and cultural relations between Italy and Albania during the interwar period (1922–1943). Her research focused on the narrative construction of historical memory and the subtle operations of power embedded in language and representation. Alongside her literary work, she has been active in entrepreneurship, merging cultural vision with innovation. In 2021, she was named one of Europe’s 50 most influential InspiringFifty role models by Corriere della Sera. From 2020 to 2023, she served as an ambassador for Connect Albania, an IOM–UN initiative aimed at strengthening ties between the Albanian diaspora and their country of origin. In 2022, she ran in the Italian general elections, becoming the first Albanian woman of the first generation to stand for a seat in the Italian Parliament. Her work also appears in Oltre/Përtej, a bilingual anthology of Albanian poets in Italy (Besa Muci Editore), mapping a transnational generation shaped by the migratory wave of the early 1990s. She has written for La Biennale di Venezia and contributes to various international publications.