Growing up in Communist Albania, Lea Ypi was unaware of what life was like in the outside world. Born in 1979 when the country had already disassociated itself from other Communist regimes and was firmly under the control of dictator Enver Hoxha, Albania was completely isolated and its citizens told that it was the only country standing up against the wicked empires of both east and west. Ypi grew up to believe that her country was the best. There was no reason not to believe it and her parents protected her from any dissent or doubt. So she grew up as a zealous young communist until the 1990s when one-party socialism gave way to a completely different multi-party state and in this perceptive, insightful memoir Ypi describes just what this new world felt like, when almost overnight all the old certainties disappeared. The human cost of this new found freedom was soon in evidence – protests, shootings, civil war, massive emigration and a new economic system. So much to come to terms with. The book is an excellent mesh of the personal with the political and I learnt a lot from it. Albania doesn’t seem to have the attention that other Balkan states receive and this is a welcome addition to the literature of that little known and poorly understood county.

This was a very interesting book written by Lea Ypi, who grew up in Albania in the 80s and 90s ,covering the time when the country was a Stalinist dictatorship and moving on to what happened after the fall of communism and the Civil War of the 90s.
I knew very little about Albania and was fascinated by the history both of the country and of Ypi’s family.The book is funny in parts and tragic in others and in no way idealises either regime.It’s interesting to find out how the revolution affected her choice of study and informed her opinions in a way that might not be expected.
Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC in return for an honest review which reflects my own opinion.

A fascinating account of growing up in Albania, a country I know little of. Set amongst the fall and aftermath of communism. It is engrossing, educating and surprising funny. A really good read.

Lea Ypi grew up in Albania and this book tells the story of her life there during the turbulent transition of the country from communism and isolation to a supposedly free democracy. Albania was extremely isolated until the fall of the Berlin wall in 1990 following which Albanians suddenly found themselves free to dress as they liked, buy what they wished and choose where they wanted to worship. The story of how Lea and her family struggled to cope with this change is fascinating. Her father went into politics, her mother and brother fled to Italy and Lea herself struggled to come to terms with the opportunities now available. Ultimately she too felt the need to leave and make her life in the UK.
How sudden freedom disrupted society and broke up families shows the importance of strong and representative governance being essential if the transition from one political culture to another is to be achieved. This was singularly lacking in Albania and "Free" vividly tells the story. To read it is a real opportunity to understand what it was like to be there and to recognise how, freedom, if wrongly delivered can bring disruption and division instead of benefit. A book worthy of study by those who govern us.

Excellent memoir from Lea Ypi about growing up in Albania. Funny and heart breaking, it taught me a lot about the Albanian diaspora and the history of the country,

Well written, moving, and fascinating. This book is STUNNINGLY good.

Thank you to NetGalley and to the publisher for allowing me to read a copy in exchange for an honest review.

When I saw this cover I was intrigued right away, the blurb also made me really want to read this. I barely knew anything about this topic. I was not dissapointed, this memoir tells you all about Ypi coming of age in a country that had to find itself. Well written and made me want to read more on this topic.

Free by Lea Ypi

When I finished this book I immediately went online to find out more about the author and about Albania. I had been taken into another world, discovered a country and a history that was new to me. Yet, the experiences that are described are not only universal but incredibly relevant for the days that we are living through now.

The story is of Lea herself, a young girl growing up in communist Albania. Her parents do their best to protect her from the incredibly complicated and dangerous politics of the times and so, as many children would do in her place, she develops a deep love and loyalty to the state, to the Party and to it’s leader, ‘Uncle Enver’.

This book takes you through the breakdown of this controlled and dominated society and shows how Lea's trust and the lives of those she loves are changed in radical and sometimes violent ways. There is a gradual awakening to the truth that always was there . A child, especially a child who wants so much to be good and to be a valuable citizen, of course has tried to fit in and to be wholehearted in her support for the regime. Yet what happens when this child matures and the society she has trusted slowly reveals its shadow face. If parents try to protect their children, this can involve deceit and secrecy and even lies. Yet to be open and honest can put their children in danger. What an impossible narrow and dangerous road that is to walk! The basic freedoms that we value of speech, of beliefs, of friendship with whom we chose cannot be fully lived in a society that is based on dominance and fear.

‘Not only did my questions about the country go unanswered; I now also wondered about what kind of family I had been born into.”

I think Lea Ypi does an incredible job of portraying the interior life of a child and the gradual awakening she experiences as both her outer and her inner worlds transform.

And even when an abusive and tyrannical society breaks down, there are losses to grieve. Nothing is black and white – humans have complex and muti-layered experiences and I think this book depicts this with great art and sensitivity.

I was immersed in Lea’s world and even though it was a country and a history that I have not experienced I felt utterly involved as so much is there that reflects our own situation even when we feel we are ‘free’.

Freedom can be under-valued until it is taken away. And as the author says, there can be even in democracies, ‘a violence that for the most part remains an abstract threat only to materialise when the powerful risk losing their privileges’.

If you cannot question and challenge the status quo, then freedom has already flown. Certainties laid down from above may seem reassuring but life is not certainty - it has nuance and must be questioned even when this brings discomfort.

“Truth was always there, waiting to be discovered, if only I knew where to look”

A moving account of what freedom meant to the people of Albania following the fall of the Berlin Wall. A reality check about being careful what you wish for. How the past controls the future. Frighteningly honest but very moving.

A most enlightening memoir of growing up in Albania while under a Stalinist regime which translated into a failed democracy that ended in civil war. The experience causes the author to speculate on what it means to be free. She has an idyllic childhood in a well-ordered society free to choose everyday actions like which way to walk home, safe in the care of kind uncles Stalin and Hoxha as she was taught at school, even to find solace in hugging the bronze legs of Uncle Stalin’s statue, while protected from knowledge of the brutality of the regime by her parents who used coded language when discussing the terrible fate of friends and neighbours. In her teens she is bewildered by the structural changes that took place in government enterprises that resulted in unemployment followed by student protests and a change to a multiparty democracy with the emergence of unfettered corrupt free enterprise that resulted in bankruptcy and the collapse of the national economy with the loss of people’s savings, resulting in civil war. Under Stalinist government laws are in place to protect the government and its assets, people were just cogs to serve society. In a democracy there must be laws in place to protect citizens, so in a step change there is a vacuum for lawless exploitation of citizens. There needs to be a managed gradual transition to avoid disaster.

Before reading Free I was almost totally ignorant of Albania’s history; that’s the main reason I requested an APC (I confess that I had to look on a map to see exactly where it is). The proximity of the then Eastern Bloc/USSR really struck me. As a child in the 1980s I thought having an older brother in the army and living in Germany was cool; now I shudder to think how worried my parents must have been, especially having seen the episodes of Deutschland 83 about Operation Able Archer. The fall of the Berlin Wall passed me by somewhat – I was in high school and not at all politically engaged. A luxury not afforded to Lea Ypi, in whose family ‘everyone had a favourite revolution, just as everyone had a favourite summer fruit.’
I can never fully comprehend what it was like living under a socialist regime but here Lea Ypi has given me a much better idea. Her description of queuing and place-holding provides a glimpse of the daily reality, as did her reaction (losing her voice) to the civil war and unplanned flight to Italy of her mother and brother.
I had read most of the book (and written most of this review) before I knew that it had been shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction (and I hadn’t seen it was on the longlist). I’m glad about that: instead of reading something that the world now tells me is good, feeling I ‘should’ enjoy it, I was able to take it as I found it. It’s good to know that the prize features books as accessible as this is, novelistic in its readability. I’m also glad that Ypi’s original intention of writing a ‘philosophical book about the overlapping ideas of freedom in the liberal and socialist traditions’ morphed into what it now is – a story of the people who lived the reality of that socialism in Albania.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC. Wow! What a memoir. One of the most readable books I have read this year. Ypi writes with clarity and conciseness that is just a pleasure to behold. That isn't to say that there are not beautiful sentences because there are. The passages describing the civil war are powerful and elegant.

Comparisons to Educated by Tara Westover are apt, but the book also reminded me of The Death of Stalin. The strange and oppressive rules that families living under a dictatorship must abide by. The often funny and farcical situations that arise in both social and professional settings as a result. The coded double-speak and fear of informers influences everything that happens in Ypi's young life. They are also far too often deadly serious. The section about Lea complaining to neighbours about a lack of Hoxha portrait was nail-bitingly scary. Ypi's parents hid their true feelings about the regime so well that she believed that they loved it.

Her parents are described with love. Their resilience and industriousness make them admirable, but they have flaws that are also laid bare. Ypi''s mother hates the state and to me came across as an almost Ayn Rand-ish free-market advocate, while her father is an idealist that that dithers. Having to navigate adolescence in a country that goes from dictatorship to democracy is a clever metaphor for the uncertainty of going from childhood to adulthood.

The book ends by asking more questions than it answers. It is a plea for political decisions to be made in a way that keeps in mind that they affect real people. I think the central question is can flawed people devise a way of living that makes us free?

Maybe the best memoir I have read this year and certainly one of the best books of 2021.

I requested this on NetGalley before it was shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford and now I am very glad I had the forethought to do so! Free is Lea Ypi's memoir about growing up in socialist Albania and the tumultuous 90s following the dissolution of socialism. I didn't know much about Albania before reading, so I am very glad to learn more about such a diverse country - especially because I'm always interested to read about lives under former Soviet-associated countries. This is a memoir about family, childhood, politics, community, socialism and so much more. The author gives valuable insights into what it was like growing up as a fully indoctrinated socialist child, and how truth can be hidden and mutated under dictatorships. There is only one thing I feel is missing: more of an exploration of her teenage years, and how moving from socialism to failed liberalism impacted on the author's sense of self and sense of her own prospects. Considering how much she believed in the project of socialism as a child, I imagine it must have been a massive change - and I would have loved to know more about how she feels that's influenced her viewpoints today.

This was such an interesting and thought provoking book. What is freedom? Who really is equal? Ms Ypi questions many western concepts through her thoughtful and well written memoir.
Thank you to netgalley and penguin books for an advance copy of this book

A brilliant, often heart-breaking book that stayed with me long after I finished reading it. It felt bold, original and extremely important. I hope it reaches many people.

Freedom is a fluid concept that shifts with culture, politics, time, age and perspective. It usually means different things to us within our lifetime. In this eye-opening, perceptive and memorable memoir novel, the idea of freedom reveals such inconsistencies, and shows how the yearning for freedom lingers on in the human heart.

The author’s own view of freedom alters slowly as she gains deeper understanding, and swiftly, with the changing political landscape, when Albania transitions from being a dominant Communist state to experiencing revolt and Civil War. Everything she was accustomed to from childhood is suddenly upended. It’s unsettling and incredibly hard.

Because far from creating a fair, peaceful and prosperous society overnight, this hard fought for freedom comes with a whole host of problems of its own. But within her own family, coded conversations over years begin to make sense as her parents and grandmother finally reveal their true political colours and allegiances.

I approached this book with curiosity, coming to it from a standpoint of virtual ignorance about Albania’s struggles during and after being governed by Communist control. Ypi provides an authentic, fascinating personal history here which is also informative and somewhat academic in tone. Grateful thanks to Penguin and NetGalley for the ARC.

Tracing the life of an innocent child growing up in politically turbulent Albania, to a young woman who starts to understand the world around her, and what is really going on, this memoir reads both as a set of essays, but also as a novel itself.

It is a slow burn, watching at the beginning where young Lea is excited about chewing gum wrappers, ashamed of speaking French because her friends don't understand, and finding out from her parents that she is actually a Muslim despite the country's outlawing of religious celebration. We see the country through her eyes- her confusion at why her parents don't feel the same about the glorious leader as she does, what all this talk of 'communism' is about, and trying to understand the 'biographies' of everyone around her.

However, soon the political situation becomes very real indeed to her, and I read the last section of this book almost breathlessly, my eyes darting across the page as she watches her country and family attacked from all sides.

And this is where the book reveals its magic trick- it has kept you in the eyes of an innocent girl through the story, the better to leave you breathless when the real magnitude of it hits.

This book is stunning, and truly a remarkable achievement.

I received an advanced copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Lea Ypi grew up in one of the most isolated countries on earth, a place where communist ideals had officially replaced religion. Albania, the last Stalinist outpost in Europe, was almost impossible to visit, almost impossible to leave. It was a place of queuing and scarcity, of political executions and secret police.

A fascinating account of life in Enver Hoxha’s Albania, and beyond, seen through the eyes of a child and then young woman, contrasting it with that of her parents and grandmother. A closed country, a one-party state, guardedness and family tensions, queuing and shortages, community and coded language all make for the most engaging read.

This is a first for me by the author and one I enjoyed and would read more of their work. The book cover is eye-catching and appealing and would spark my interest if in a bookshop. Thank you very much to the author, publisher and Netgalley for this ARC.

Wasn't sure if this was really going to be my type of book or not but having visited Albania for a day trip from Corfu three years ago I was keen to know what it was previously like under the Communists.
The story is told through the eyes of a young girl and commences a few years before the fall of Russian Communist state.
A real eye opener but I took the impression that they were generally a happy lot.
Without giving too much of a spoiler imagine living in a country where an empty Coke can was deemed worthy of being displayed as an ornament in your living room such was the rarity of it.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC.

I knew very little about Albanian history before reading this book, so it was certainly educational. As a memoir, it unfortunately didn’t match my expectations.

The book describes the experiences of Lea, who was 11 years old in 1990 when communism began to collapse in Albania. There is distinctly a ‘before’ and ‘after’ in the narrative – halfway through, it is revealed what her family were keeping from her. Her life had revolved around the indoctrination of the one-party state and suddenly everything changed. There is a lot about her family, friends, teachers and neighbours. It was interesting to read about what everyday life for children was like in communist Albania but it was put more in perspective when Lea visited Greece and made a list of everything she was experiencing for the first time.

The writing lacked the novelistic style that I like in a memoir. I just expected to feel more of an emotional impact, as although I knew so little about Albania, I did know how turbulent the times were. Some of the content seemed like lectures and indeed I later found out that the author is a political theory professor. I ended up skipping those paragraphs which, while undoubtedly important, were written in an academic way that did not appeal.

In summary, this book has admirable qualities and is ideal if you want to know more about Albanian political history. It turned out to be not my kind of read, however.

Thank you to the publisher Penguin for the advance copy via NetGalley.

[This review will be on my blog, 11th October 2021]