MATTHEW HAWKINS applauds a psychotherapist’s disection of William Blake
Albania the enigma
HENRY BELL is intrigued by an account of Albania that grapples with the changing nature of history and memory
UNEXPECTED: Tirana adventures in architecture
[Pic: Z Blace/CC] 
New releases from Christina Alden and Alex Patterson, Odette Michell, Clementine Lovell
JOHN GREEN is fascinated by a very readable account of Britain’s involvement in South America
Strip cartoons used to be the bread and butter of newspapers and they have been around for centuries. MICHAL BONCZA asks our own Paul Tanner about which bees are in his bonnet
GORDON PARSONS acknowledges the authority with which Sarah Kane’s theatrical justification for suicide has resonance today
RON JACOBS welcomes a timely homage to one of the IWW and CPUSA’s most effective orators
Enver Hoxha’s Long Shadow – Travels in Albania
John Watkins, Signal Press, £14.99
ALBANIA is an anomalous and perplexing country to many outside of it: a heartland of European Islam and long an atheist country, dominated by a language that has no close relatives, geographically a wild mix of forest, mountain and sandy beaches, but firmly associated with brutalist cities, heavy industry and metal mining.
Surrounded by the tumultuous history of Greek and Balkan nations, Albania has remained apart through the centuries. Both despite and because of its long domination by the Ottomans, then the Italians and the Nazis, it has forged a strong and unique national identity. Yet its people are spread around the world, with more Albanians in the diaspora than living in the country.
Albania remains perhaps the most exotic place in Europe.
More from this author
HENRY BELL notes the curious confluence of belief, rebuilding and cheap materials that gave rise to an extraordinary number of modernist churches in post-war Scotland
HENRY BELL takes issue with the assertion that basic income is a remedy for poverty when it doesn’t address the inbuilt inequality of capitalism
HENRY BELL is provoked by a book that looks toward, but does not fully explore the question of who gets to imagine the shapes of cities to come
HENRY BELL is moved by the account of scientists under seige in Leningrad who preferred to starve rather than sacrifice their life-saving work
