WRONGLAND

By Gazmend Kapllani
Translated by Peter Bien

Fans of Kapllani’s bestselling A Short Border Handbook will again encounter the uncanny sophistries of how large themes — the nation-state, migration, borders — become the very human story of our often ridiculous or ridiculously lucky moment. Kapllani is our Balkan Kundera, and like Kundera, he creates a world in which our tragedies make us laugh as much as they make us cry. — Adrianne Kalfopoulou, author of The Re in Refuge and A History of Too Much

Wrongland is punctuated by grief, framed by two funerals: the protagonist’s father and a murdered woman. It is also marked by more invisible griefs, the grief of linguistic dislocation, displacement, and internalized exile. — Ewa Chru´sciel, author of Contraband of Hoopoe and Yours, Purple Gallinule

Current experiences and flashbacks explore the tensions of rootedness and exploration, of individualism and collective loyalty, and of borders, fences, nationalism, repression, and freedom. Trees have roots, but do people? Many of us have migrated, across the country or around the world . . . How many, like Karl, feel “completely free and absolutely lost” on crossing a border. — Susan H. Holcombe, Professor Emerita of the Practice, Brandeis University

Although set in a “forgotten village” in central Albania, this powerful tale — a kind of prodigal-son story for the 21st century — has much to say to a broader audience about the troubled state of our global village. — Miles Harvey, author of The Registry of Forgotten Objects and The King of Confidence

An extraordinary novel on the destiny of the exiled. —Diego Zandel, Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso

Wrongland speaks of returns: like Odysseus who was trying to get to Ithaca, the return is an adventure, another journey. — Sole 24ore 

Kapllani exposes the rationale of those who leave their country as migrants and of the others who choose to remain. He does it in such a powerful way that the reader remains suspended, unable to take sides. — Jean-Claude Champseix, En attendant Nadeau

Shortlisted for the National Book Prize in Albania.

GAZMEND KAPLLANI is an Albanian-born polyglot author, journalist, and scholar. He is the author of two collections of poetry in Albanian and four published novels (written in Greek and Albanian). His literary work centers on borders, totalitarianism, migration, identity, and how Balkan history has shaped private and public narratives and memories. His books are taught in prestigious universities in Europe, the United States, and Canada and have been the subject of many scholarly essays.
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PETER BIEN’s translations of Nikos Kazantzakis’s The Last Temptation of Christ appeared in 1960, of Saint Francis in 1962, Report to Greco in 1965, and Zorba the Greek in 2014. He taught at Dartmouth College from 1961 to 1997 and has been a visiting professor at the universities of Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, Brown, Melbourne, Thessaloniki twice, and Crete. A cofounder and past president of the Modern Greek Studies Association of America and Canada, he served as editor of the association’s Journal of Modern Greek Studies from 1991 to 1999. 
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