Literary Nonfiction. Travel Writing. Southeastern European Studies. For one hot week in June of 1995, poet Ron Padgett toured little-known, isolated Albania, in the company of five fellow American and several Albanian writers and editors. With his lively interest in languages, keen eye for detail, and growing sympathy for the difficulties of the long, repressive period from which Albania was just emerging, Padgett documents the country's sights and sounds, its people and places, and its many surprises. His deft prose shines a clear light on this enigmatic country and its fiercely proud people, so hospitable to strangers, so potentially explosive among themselves.

Author City: New York, NY USA

Ron Padgett is a celebrated translator, memoirist, and "a thoroughly American poet, coming sideways out of Whitman, Williams, and New York Pop with a Tulsa twist" (Peter Gizzi). His poetry has been translated into more than a dozen languages and has appeared in The Best American Poetry, The Norton Anthology of Postmodern American Poetry, The Oxford Book of American Poetry, and on Garrison Keillor's Writer's Almanac. He was also a guest on Keillor's A Prairie Home Companion in 2009. Padgett is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and his most recent books include HOW LONG, HOW TO BE PERFECT, JOE: A MEMOIR OF JOE BRAINARD, and IF I WERE YOU. Born in Oklahoma, he lives in New York City and Calais, Vermont.

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