Discipline: Literature – poetry

Luljeta Lleshanaku

Discipline: Literature – poetry
Region: Tirana, ALBANIA
MacDowell Fellowships: 1999, 2004, 2013, 2018

Luljeta Lleshanaku is the author of eight poetry collections in Albanian and nine collections published in translation in other languages, such as German, Polish, Spanish, Italian, etc. Her poems have been published in three English-language volumes, including Fresco (2002) and Child of Nature (2010) from New Directions in the U.S. and Haywire: New & Selected Poems (2011) from Bloodaxe Books in the UK. Both presses will release her new poetry collection Negative Space in 2018. Her books were reviewed by journals such as The Guardian and The New York Times among others. She won the “Kristal Vilenica” International award on 2009.

While at MacDowell, she completed a narrative-based group of poems about her personal and country’s history, told from the perspective of the objects in context of a minimalist aesthetics, typical of Eastern Europe during the Communist regimes.

Studios

Sprague-Smith

Luljeta Lleshanaku worked in the Sprague-Smith studio.

In January of 1976, the original Sprague-Smith Studio — built in 1915–1916 and funded by music students of Mrs. Charles Sprague-Smith of the Veltin School — was destroyed by fire. Redesigned by William Gnade, Sr., a Peterborough builder, the fieldstone structure was rebuilt the same year from the foundation up, reusing the original fieldstone. A few…

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