INTERVIEW/ASTRIT LULUSHI BY MARIA TERESA LIUZZO

INTERVIEW WITH THE FAMOUS WRITER ASTRIT LULUSHI - JOURNALIST - ''THE VOICE OF AMERICA''

 

ISSUED TO MARIA TERESA LIUZZO - EDITOR OF THE INTERNATIONAL CULTURE MAGAZINE ''LE MUSE'' (ITALY)

 

[Astrit Lulushi]

[Maria Teresa Liuzzo]

Astrit Lulushi's work is monumental, complex and articulated. It unfolds over a very long period of time and is characterized by creative vision and originality. Its main characteristic is versatility. He is, in fact, a Writer, Essayist, Literary and Art Critic, Philosopher, Historian, acute and very talented poet, journalist of ''LA VOCE DELL'AMERICA'' (Washington). We are faced with a total intellectual who makes our thoughts go to Ungaretti, Montale, but also to Baudelaire, Pound, Eliot. The overall activity is linked to a centre, visible and occult, which also constantly tends towards the conquest of poetry: transversally in the different forms of Scripture; of art in general; of the very current theories on discontinuity, not only at a sub-atomic level, and on the constitution of matter, to the unification of the unity of being, therefore also psychological, touching on the sphere of the absolute. At the same time, the forces and action of time are revealed: it does not matter if the Heraclitean panta rei and the eternal Parmenidean immobility oscillate. Everything is dynamically wrapped in a universalizing vertigo which, due to the effect of the word, takes on immortal mobility. In the body of readings we encounter some literary ancestry and ''Leitmotifs'' with Lee Masters in the Spoon River Anthology, an operation that is not easy, but even risky because it establishes a comparison with a masterpiece of world literature. But Lulushi emerges with extreme vigor and dignity, above all by imposing the original features of his language. An interior landscape formed in his life of travel and escape when he emigrated to America. For his culture he remains an enigma in the eyes of his readers and researchers today. He knows that a life of tragedy guarantees the best of writing and goodness.

A character, Lulushi, who from the outdated point of view in the Nietzschean sense, when he reaffirms the values is against the contemporary ''philistines'' who condition and pollute contemporary literature - and in contrast to the mediocrity, which seems to prevail in the writing as a whole, of art in general. Here we cannot dwell on everything, but neither can we remain silent about a Work which stands out - in our humble opinion - as a milestone, due to the consequence of an absolute genius like Plato. Astrit Lulushi's revelation of Plato seems to us to be a brilliant and extremely useful operation. His writing represents a clear autonomous example that contains the spirit and meaning of the original work intact and adheres perfectly to our cultural and human contemporaneity. He exposes his conception of time as he perceives it in the course of his existence, biographical and creative, which, however, in him coincide and arrive naturally and paradoxically, through the acceptance of every relativistic principle, of the indistinct space-time sphere shaping each of his works and above all poetic ones with somatizing principles dating back to ERNST MACH (1838 - 1916) for his scientific and philosophical culture and for his aerodynamic, unveiled writing that goes into earthly and terrestrial space, to the truth; to MAX PLANCK (1858 - 1947) for his genius which, when discovered, creates beauty and wonder; PLATO (427 BC - 347 BC) how he deduces and investigates the Knowledge of Love and Politics around the world of ideas, myths and Parmenidean doctrine. What is looking at universal silence if not having a soul? (FEDOR IVANOVIC TYUTCEV).

Astrit Lulushi does not consider thought as materiality, but far from animality and is far from that pathological collectivity that craves dominance, ambiguity and annihilation, as happens in society where the god of money counts and not the intelligence of the honest . In a violent society under philanthropic appearances in which everyone is aimed at realizing themselves as a material subject and making their dark neurons win. The writer's verses, his novels, his discoveries, his philosophy will be immortal where thought becomes high poetic and narrative creation; his questioning of the meaning of existence, of the impossibility of grasping the mystery. We reflect on the progressive and unstoppable loss that has brought about the contempt of man, which still today, in the third Millennium, proceeds without recovery, or a fake recovery.

 

Interview

 

Q. What role does writing have in contemporary society for you?

A. In any art, there must be two initial gifts: Talent and Experience. I don't know to what extent, but they have to be there. I started writing late and put it off for so many years. When I finally started, I felt like I had nothing to lose and that I might as well tell the truth. My life changed and in the new world there were many things that many in Albania had never heard of, because they lived isolated like in a prison.

The material stays in your body for a long time before you start writing. The books I wrote took time because I had to find the right place to write. America has become my second country and anxiety my second language. I think in Albanian and write in Albanian and for Albanians.

 

Q. You as a scrupulous and intelligent observer. His eye is a magnifying glass that communicates between reality and dreams. Tell us about this aspect.

A. It's like forever: one has many, many chambers in the brain that make one big room. That's the nature of the art form and that's what's happening now. Only the small room has become large. Anyone can write. It's just like in school, children learn to put words together into sentences; then they connect them, make them coherent with other sentences, so that they can be expressed both in writing and orally. But saying that anyone can become a poet or writer is like saying that anyone can compose a sonata. In any art, there are two initial gifts that must be there: Talent and Experience. I don't know how much there has to be, but there has to be.

 

Q. In your writings, in addition to the themes that speak of myth and justice, you often refer to God and the Holy Scriptures.

A. Why not? After all, the first man is God's creation, despite the fact that there are many in the public who say otherwise - especially our now older generation. We were born, educated and raised in the half of the world that was communist and atheist. At the beginning, when I came out of the communist hell, the first thing I asked was to give me a Bible - a very heavy book both in paper consistency and in thoughts and which have great value for a person like me.

 

Q. Your works are rich in teachings and are in constant comparison with the way of understanding life of yesterday and today.

A. True, it's as you say. These are lessons that I have learned during my life and I try to pass them on to young people. The reason I write them in Albanian is that my people need it as a basis to understand more than what they have been indoctrinated with. I am sorry and compassionate to them to the point of pity. They were proud but had a little to show.

 

Q. Your works are historical, ethical and social documents of great depth, which combine psychological and sociological aspects with characters that your mind describes with emotional tension.

A. I make a distinction between a very effective fiction, which lets the words flow beautifully, and so on. I write differently than some people. You really have to press the material to get something out of it, and not just take every sentence in the book and graft it on. It made me feel a little like I was reading someone. David Foster Wallace, he always said, "I can't play that game. I wish I could, but I can't."

Young people have a saying: "kill in your lane." This is a very important principle of writing. You need to figure out what you can't do, block it out, and focus on what works.

 

Q. I had an enthusiastic impression of your extraordinary works. Do you think you have entered the heart and soul of the creative trend, its fluctuating reality with a critical spirit?

A. For everything, man has two opinions: negative and affirmative. One of the first sayings comes from a diary written by Søren Kierkegaard in 1835: There are two possible situations: you can do this or that." My honest opinion and friendly advice is this: do it or don't do it, you will regret it either way. So, once again, don't expect concrete answers, talent and life experience remain the basis of writing, as in everything else. What I need to clarify is “do what you need to do, not what you need to know.”