by Anna Lattanzi, Albania Letteraria – May 19, 2025

“I have lived in Western Europe for twenty-eight years: two in Paris, one in London, more than twenty-four in Italy. I can’t even call myself a citizen of a single Italian city, since I’ve lived in at least four. A few months ago, I moved to Bologna—the latest in a series of relocations after eleven years in Milan. Every move carries its own weight of melancholy. And perhaps for that very reason, this time I decided to rid myself of notebooks, documents, receipts, and slips of paper I no longer need. In essence, everything I had carefully kept for over twenty-seven years—without knowing exactly why. I realized I had been accumulating all those papers just to remind myself that I existed—or rather, to try and find a thread that might give it all meaning.”

Even today, far too little is known about Albania. Its landscapes are familiar—those most famous and touristic—but its history remains largely unknown. The more recent past, during the over forty years of Enver Hoxha’s regime, is taught patchily, if at all; knowledge of the years under fascist domination is even more scarce. In 1939, Italy decided to occupy the Land of the Eagles, folding it into its cumbersome war machinery until 1943, when fascism fell. The invasion was softened in name and called “annexation,” but it was nothing other than an act of imposition and subjugation. Albania, whether it wanted to or not, became a tool of fascist propaganda—propaganda that promised aid and solidarity, but in reality delivered only control and dependency.

In her recently published book L’aquila nera (The Black Eagle, Marsilio Editori), Anita Likmeta recounts—with a richness of detail rooted in study and research—the events that unfolded during the long arc between the Italian invasion and the regime’s collapse, when the waves of migration began to awaken Europe’s awareness of the Albanian people. The images of the Vlora ship, packed with men, are etched in the memory of those who lived through that time, and in history itself—as a lasting testament to what happened. The Italy that had once invaded now found itself receiving men and women whose very existence it had ignored. They were frightened, hungry, and desperate for freedom. The voice of Bari’s then-mayor, Enrico Dalfino, still echoes: “They are people.”

The Italians responded with a mix of emotion: pity, humanity, but also suspicion toward a people they had forgotten. No one had been prepared for such a wave of arrivals—nor, perhaps, was anyone ready to face the truth: that a former invading nation was now welcoming the once-invaded. Onboard the Vlora were Anita Likmeta’s mother and siblings, whom she joined years later. Likmeta’s narrative moves between past and present. Emotions pulse beneath the surface, and the urgency is palpable: the need to tell the truth, to recount the incontrovertible history of a time when Italy chose to slip into the quiet of a defenseless people, already weakened by hardship—only to then leave them to a new enemy: dictatorship. What emerges is the vital account of a personal journey—one that mirrors the paths of many—which led a young Anita toward a new identity. An identity at times difficult to balance, or even recognize.

L’aquila nera (The Black Eagle) leads readers into the soul of Albania, through both national history and the author’s own. The writing flows with ease while offering multiple layers of reflection—especially to those willing to question the actions of those in power, and to accept that the course of history cannot be rewritten. Likmeta’s work is no mere narrative. It is a complex reconstruction of the past, whose interpretation demands a process of understanding: a way to trace how events unfolded and how they continue to reverberate through the present. To know the past is to read the present. From a close reading of this book, one sees how history and its stories have shaped contemporary identity. It may seem a simple concept, but it is of great importance: history is the narrative of memory, and memory must never be lost.