Stigmata by Gëzim Hajdari and translated by Cristina Viti

This is poetry from Albania.

Stigmata by Gëzim Hajdari translated by Cristina Viti is published by Shearsman Books. This is a Book originally written in Italian. This was published in 2016.0 and has the ISBN of 9.781848614413E12.

Stigmata, by Gëzim Hajdari and translated by Cristina Viti from Italian, brings Albania Italian-language poetry into English through exile, bodily marking, and an Albanian-Italian lyric shaped by wound and witness. The metadata gives the reader a doorway, but the real value is what happens once the poem starts making its own weather. I would read it for stigma, border, scar, and the forms of identity that cannot be left behind, not as a fixed lesson about a country or period. The best entry point is still the poem itself: the line that catches, the image that refuses to explain itself, the feeling that arrives before paraphrase. Stigmata belongs in the translated poetry library because it places migration and linguistic crossing at the center of the poem’s body.

If you’d like to see international poetry continue and gain traction, consider requesting this work from your local library, or purchasing it from places like Open Books (a poetry only bookstore), Asterism Books (an independent press distributor), or bookshop.org to connect you with your local bookstores.

Check out more of the always in-progress translated poetry index here.