Долазим да позеленим
(I Come to Leaf Out)
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Just published in Belgrade by the Association of Writers of Serbia, this book is a collection of work that includes a selection of poems from Marinaj’s previously published poetry books in Albanian. I Come to Leaf Out has been translated into Serbian by Pjetër Dreshaj and edited by acclaimed Serbian author and journalist, Jovan Janjic.
“The poetry collection by Gjekë Marinaj, I Come to Leaf Out, is an expression of a passionate spirit that clashes with the world like the seas and shores, and which in love finds salvation from the dehumanized modern world. Here we have the two loves of a poet overlapped, that of a woman and of poetry. The core of his existence is found in both, along with the rejuvenating force and the ability to find a new purpose. The thoughtful poet wants to extract a poem from the pure cognition of the world, from the mythical essence of existence, from the need to give answers to present and historical challenges.
Những hy vọng trong suốt (Translucent Hopes)
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Translucent Hopes, published by the Publishing House of the Vietnamese Writers Association, gives us an idea of why Gjekë Marinaj’s poems have been described by The Durango Herald as “the epitome of poetic quality in the contemporary poetry.”
Faithfully translated from English into Vietnamese by Nguyễn Chí Hoan, these selected poems express a variety of human concerns and articulate innovative ideas. Reaching out to people’s challenges across the globe from Albania to America, Persia, Bosnia and Somalia, the poet give us access to his sphere of space and time, a clear indication that the earth is Marinaj’s country and the human race is his people.
—Nga Pham
Zanore në Vesë (Vowels in The Dew)
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Published by the Botimet B&M in Tirana, Albania, this landmark collection displays the best poems of Mai Van Phan written in the past three decades. The scope and significance of the Vietnamese poet and winner of the Vietnamese Writers Association Award is introduced for the first time in the Albanian language by Gjekë Marinaj.
Prior to its selection and translation into Albanian by Marinaj, these breathtaking poems had been translated from Vietnamese into English, published by Page Addie Press and printed in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada under three titles as translations by Nguyen Tien Van (“Out of the Dark”), Nhat-Lang Le (“Seeds of Night and Day”), and Tran Nghi Hoang (“Firmament Without Roof Cover”). Marinaj translated most of these poems into Albanian directly from their English translations.
Những nguyên âm trong sương sớm (Vowels in The Dew)
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— Bilingual Edition (Vietnamese and Albanian)
Published by the Publishing House of the Vietnamese Writers Association (NHÀ XUẤT BẢN HỘI NHÀ VĂN VIỆT NAM) in Hanoi, Vietnam, this landmark collection displays the best poems of Mai Van Phan written in the past three decades. The scope and significance of the Vietnamese poet and winner of the Vietnamese Writers Association Award is introduced for the first time in the Albanian language by Gjekë Marinaj.
Prior to its selection and translation into Albanian by Marinaj, these breathtaking poems had been translated from Vietnamese into English, published by Page Addie Press and printed in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada under three titles as translations by Nguyen Tien Van (“Out of the Dark”), Nhat-Lang Le (“Seeds of Night and Day”), and Tran Nghi Hoang (“Firmament Without Roof Cover”). Marinaj translated most of these poems into Albanian directly from their English translations.
The Prisoner of Absence by Gjeke Marinaj, launched in Bucharest
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— Marius Dobrescu
On August 12, 2013, in a select club in Bucharest, Gjekë Marinaj launched his volume of poetry, The Prisoner of Absence. The poet, a college instructor in Dallas, Texas, and an American resident since 1991, was present to autograph editions for his friends and sympathizers.
The publication, an anthology of the Albanian-American author’s poetry, is introduced by literary critic Radu Voiculescu. In addition to the poet and Voiculescu, also present were Luan Topciu, diplomat and author of an anthology of contemporary and classic Albanian poetry, essayist and editor Vlad Zografi, journalist Maria Dobrescu, and other Albanian literary luminaries and distinguished civic leaders and journalists.
SUNG ACROSS THE SHOULDER
HEROIC POETRY OF ILLYRIA
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This book is an anthology of Albanian oral poetry in translation, in the tradition of Francis James Child’s collection of British oral poetry in the 19th century and Alan Lomax’s collection of American folk ballads in the 20th. It was recorded live, mostly in the presence of the co-translator Gjekë Marinaj, and mostly in the traditional mountain villages of Malësia e Madhe in Northern Albania. It was then translated directly from the acoustic recording by Marinaj and co-translator Frederick Turner. Turner rendered the verses in the same metrical forms as the originals.
The poems are arranged under the following headings: patriotic songs; pastorals; heroic tales; the epic matter of Muji; courtship, flirtation, and love; marriage songs; spells, charms, and games; hymns and rituals; and philosophy. The anthology includes an introductory essay by Turner and a scholarly background essay by Marinaj, with brief biographical sketches of the performers, including photographs.
OCCURRENCE ON EARTH
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Occurrence on Earth, a collection of works by Albanian poet-statesman Preç Zogaj (translated into English by Gjekë Marinaj) speaks to the collective experience of his people during the period leading up to and immediately following the fall of communism in Eastern Europe. Zogaj’s verses, composed between 1989 and 2008, present the haunting introspection of a people just emerging from decades of life under one of the world’s most isolated and repressive dictatorships. The works achieve a distinctively national character with sprinkled references to Albania’s cities, mountains, and coastline on the Adriatic Sea. Regional references include the cultural symbols of neighboring Greece, Zogaj’s religious heritage in Christian Northern Albania, and Islam (Albania’s predominant religion since the days of the Ottoman Empire).
While mentioning the influence of the Soviet era with a reference to Russian poet Alexander Pushkin, these poems reveal Albania’s strong identity with the West, incorporating such places as Florence in Italy and California in America, and such icons of European literature as Shakespeare, Goethe, and Balzac. Many of the poems written in the earlier part of the period evoke sad images of a traumatized people, who were living in a countryside littered with arms and ammunition, including chemical weapons from the communist era and land mines left over from the Kosovo conflict.
THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY
(VENDI I PAZBULUAR)
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F. Turner’s The Undiscovered Country (translated into Albanian by Gjekë Marinaj) deals in poetic and narrative terms with perhaps the largest question in human life: What if we survive our own death? Would an afterlife rectify the tragic injustices of life, or render all of the moral, aesthetic and intellectual content of our lives meaningless? Composed in the form of a sequence of 60 sonnets, the poem begins with an extended, slightly troubled idyll of a man who has apparently died, left himself a trust fund, still lives, but cannot remember his previous life. The poem then turns into a story in which he seeks to recover his memory and find his lost wife. Elements of science fiction and future politics combine with evocative landscapes, passionate action, and searching character study. Biomedical, supernatural, psychological, and allegorical explanations hang in suspension. The poem avoids any distracting religious or theological doctrines, but grapples with the ethical and spiritual issues of saying farewell to the world.
Vështrim mbi poezinë e Diasporës
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Prior to its publication by Fiorentia Press in 2013, Vështrim mbi poezinë e Diasporës: Me poetët Kolec Traboini, Gjekë Marinaj, Fatmir Tereziu (Overview of the Poetry of Diaspora: On Works by Kolec Traboini, Gjekë Marinaj, Fatmir Tereziu), had been presented by Mimiza Rexhvelaj to the faculty of The University of Shkodra “Luigj Gurakuqi,” as part of the requirements of the master of science degree in Albanian ethno-culture and literature, successfully defended in June 2012.