The Coca Cola can

‘I never asked myself what freedom meant until the day I hugged Stalin.’

This is how Lea Ypi's magnificent book begins.

The first thing I thought was that the author was really hugging, physically and in the flesh, the Soviet dictator, when in reality she was hugging a statue of the man made of steel.

The first part of the book, its 150 pages with which the story starts, describes the life of a family and a girl, Leushka, in the death throes of the communist regime in Albania.

A bright eleven-year-old girl that didn't understand why the statues of Stalin and Uncle Enver were being torn down. But the most painful thing for the protagonist is that, with the monuments, secrets and lies also fall; words are put to the silences and the whispers gain volume until they become clearly audible in the living room of the house... And she begins to distrust her family.

By the way, the fifth chapter describes a situation that I would say has a mix of surreal with a slight touch of magical realism that I leave to the reader's free interpretation. The spotlight goes to a disputed can of Coca Cola.

From my Borstal

LDR

Lea Ypi.- Free. Coming of Age at the End of History. Allen Lane. London 2021