About the Author <\/strong><\/p>\n Poet Muj\u00eb Bu\u00e7papaj, born in Tropoja<\/a>, Albania<\/a> (1962), graduated from the branch of Albanian Language and Literature, University of Tirana (1986). In the years 1991-1992, he studied for two years for feature film script at Kinostudio “Alshqiperia e Re”, Tirana, today “Albafilmi” (considered as post-master’s studies), as well as completed many other qualifications of the cultural spectrum in country and abroad. Muj\u00eb Bu\u00e7papaj is a doctor of literary sciences with a thesis on the survival of Albanian poetry during the communist censorship, defended at the Institute of Linguistics and Literature of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Albania. He is one of the founders of political pluralism and the free press in Albania (1990) and a journalist for many years in the most popular newspapers in Tirana. He is the head of the literary and cultural newspaper “Nacional”, the “Nacional” Publishing House and the Studies and National Projects.<\/p>\n In the years 1991-2005 he was co-founder and journalist of the first opposition newspaper in the country after 50 years of communist dictatorship “Rilindja Demokratike” and founder of the newspaper “Tribuna Demokratike.”<\/p>\n In the years 2005-2009 he was the director of the International Cultural Center in Tirana, while in the years 2010-2014 he was the Director of the Albanian Copyright Office in Tirana. After the year 2014 and onwards, he took charge of the “Nacional” Publications and the “Nacional” newspaper. Currently, he is also a lecturer at “Luarasi” University in Tirana, where he teaches the subject of Academic Writing.<\/p>\n Bu\u00e7papaj is one of the most prominent exponents of contemporary Albanian poetry with the greatest national and international success, respectively published in several foreign languages and honored with several prestigious international awards from Greece to the USA and one of the most prominent managers of culture in the country. Drafter of cultural policies.<\/p>\n He is the lead organizer of many international conferences held in Tirana on the problems of art, literature and copyright.<\/p>\n He is the author of many study books on literature and poetics, but also of hundreds of journalistic writings, criticisms, essays, studies including those on regional problems, national security as well as on the management of art in market conditions, cultural policies and national strategy of culture. He is known as one of the strongest public debaters on the problems of the Albanian transition, regional political developments, and democracy as a whole. He is the founder of the newspaper\/magazine “Nacional” and its director. He lives, works and creates in Tirana, together with his wife and two daughters.<\/p>\n He can be contacted at Email: bucpapaj@yahoo.com<\/p>\n His poems were translated in English by Claude C. FREEMAN III and Uk\u00eb Zenel BU\u00c7PAPAJ<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0…The river\u2019s memory \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Hiding in the smell of leaves… <\/em><\/p>\n If you know what it feels like to be home, Muj\u00eb Bu\u00e7papaj\u2019s \u2018The Invisible Victory\u2019 will break your heart. It is a beautiful, intimate portrait of a people and a landscape torn by war\u2014and of the scars that remain. Bu\u00e7papaj becomes the haunting voice of multitudes, both living and dead, who experienced the war in Kosovo. He focuses on the connection between the men, women and children and their homeland. The poems that constitute The Invisible Victory are the jagged, glittering fragments of the poet\u2019s heart lying raw and scattered between nations. The human spirit is what unifies the poems\u2014the longing for home as it once was and for people who are now lost and the utter sadness in knowing it is only a memory.\u00a0 The brokenness reflects the hearts of the poet\u2019s brothers and sisters of friends, families, enemies, and what is human in each of us.\u00a0 All suffered together; they were and are unified in their pain, and pain and brokenness are part of what unifies The Invisible Victory.<\/p>\n The book begins with suffering and ends with its prospect, a final poem consisting of prophesy and history interwoven. The most prominent emotion in the book is the poet\u2019s sadness, and his is the sadness of nations. The most intimate emotion, however, is the poet\u2019s sheer determination to preserve the freedom of expression for the good of all nations. In writing the book, he lives that passion, and the \u201cinvisible victory\u201d becomes the defeat of any fear which might impede proclamation of the truth.\u00a0 Showing his love for his homeland and his gift for brilliant, vivid imagery and metaphor, Bu\u00e7papaj interweaves concepts of home and those who remember home and, in doing so, touches what is human in us all.<\/p>\n Inherent in the poems is a longing for a lost past that has not begun to fade from the reaches of memory, but rather, that is separated only by a thin, yet immovable curtain of time.\u00a0 Bu\u00e7papaj examines the substance of time through the poetic medium as though hopeful that he will find some loophole through which he might rescue all that was lost to him.\u00a0 Ironically, the collection begins with the image of the sunset in \u201cThe Invisible Victory\u201d- the beginning of the end – and it ends with a poem titled \u201cThis Is Just the Beginning,\u201d which opens with an image of the devil\u2019s son reigning on a throne of fire and closes with a sad and frightening prospect: the harvest has come and death waits.\u00a0 The final stanza reads: \u201cFarewell \/ You people remaining \/ At the beginning.\u201d\u00a0 It seems to be saying that all the hellish experience documented in the book is only a precursor to what is to come.\u00a0 Interestingly, both \u201cThe Invisible Victory\u201d and \u201cThis Is Just the Beginning\u201d are written in the past tense.\u00a0 The collection is interspersed with brief, imagistic poems much like stills from the action of mind and memory.\u00a0 They force the reader to stop, take a step back, and to gaze in awe at what simply is, while realizing that any single moment is timeless.<\/p>\n Bu\u00e7papaj occasionally speaks in the first person, gradually bringing his own loss and grief to the surface of the work.\u00a0 In the title poem, which also opens the collection, the poet makes himself known as an integral part of his world and its circumstances:<\/p>\n I was also <\/em><\/p>\n Under the cracked skin <\/em><\/p>\n Of the sun\u2019s <\/em><\/p>\n Rusty clothes <\/em><\/p>\n Measuring the colour<\/em><\/p>\n Of corn fields (from \u2018The Invisible Victory\u2019) <\/em><\/p>\n The sun is setting, and there is an ominous implication in the fact that the poem is written in the past tense: \u201cLife \/ Wasn\u2019t enough for Man \/ To do good.\u201d\u00a0 The poet speaks from beyond this time, and his tone is brimming with a nearly breathless melancholy; in it, we hear the mournful echo as the sun disappears: too late, it\u2019s too late, too late.<\/p>\n Initially, the first person persona seems somewhat distant from events, albeit saddened by what he has witnessed.\u00a0 It is not long, however, before the narrator\u2019s references to himself become intimate and raw, thus making the personal more universal:<\/p>\n O God <\/em><\/p>\n It seems to me<\/em><\/p>\n Instead of my Homeland<\/em><\/p>\n I have left a field<\/em><\/p>\n Of men<\/em><\/p>\n Devoid of sight <\/em><\/p>\n Behind the plane\u2019s door (from \u2018Dirty Fantasy\u2019) <\/em><\/p>\n It is when Bu\u00e7papaj makes himself most visible in his poems that I can also hear the voices of an entire nation of people. \u201cA Letter to my Mother\u201d is the longest and one of the strongest poems in the collection. Bu\u00e7papaj lives right on the surface of this poem, and it contains some of the most touching passages in the book. Bu\u00e7papaj\u2019s very tears have pooled in the midst of its lines:<\/p>\n Dear Mother <\/em><\/p>\n I spent a black winter<\/em><\/p>\n In the womb of curse<\/em><\/p>\n Where death finds <\/em><\/p>\n Man in solitude<\/em><\/p>\n With roads wrapped round his head [. . .]<\/em><\/p>\n And because of the heavy field <\/em><\/p>\n I left one of my legs<\/em><\/p>\n And my youngest daughter\u2019s tears <\/em><\/p>\n In dust <\/em><\/p>\n Bu\u00e7papaj\u2019s words are filled with a fiery sadness.\u00a0 He is bold and unapologetic in his grief.\u00a0 In \u201cThe Night Over Kosova,\u201d he tells of the hate-sparked fires which destroyed homes, hearts, and such beauty.\u00a0 Bu\u00e7papaj mourns in tears and flame, and through him, his nation finds a voice.<\/p>\n Bu\u00e7papaj\u2019s poems are generally short, usually less than a page, and they tend to end suddenly, with strong, yet understated aphorisms, the effect of which is startling\u2014much like the effect of the war\u2019s losses on the people.\u00a0 This is no accident.\u00a0 It also pulls the reader\u2019s attention to the poignant conclusion of each poem.\u00a0 Characteristically short lines work well with this technique; the devices reflect each other in form and in effect.\u00a0 Short lines, at times, have the effect of making the speaker sound as though he is gasping for breath, as though wounded or exhausted (as he is in \u201cA Letter to My Mother\u201d).\u00a0 The short, enjambed lines combined with virtually nonexistent punctuation can also accelerate the reading of the poem, and this effect, combined with the often sudden conclusions, leaves us somewhat dizzy\u2014like running off the edge of the earth into space\u2014at which point we realize what Bu\u00e7papaj had in mind all along: to yank the solid foundation from beneath us in order to make us feel what he and so many others felt at the great losses they suffered.\u00a0 With the poems\u2019 conclusions, and often within the poems as well, one finds oneself soaring off the edge of the earth in defiance of gravity, and this changes one\u2019s conception of \u201cnecessary\u201d footing, just as the great losses due to war must have affected those who suffered it.<\/p>\n What charms me most about this book is the way Bu\u00e7papaj employs such fresh, stunning images within his metaphor.\u00a0 I have selected only three of the numerous examples from the book. They speak for themselves:<\/p>\n Dusk <\/em><\/p>\n Had fallen from the trees<\/em><\/p>\n Down on school children\u2019s bags <\/em><\/p>\n The sound of the hearth\u2019s ashes <\/em><\/p>\n Rolling round the world (from \u2018Kosov\u00eb 1999\u2019) <\/em><\/p>\n The Big Marsh <\/em><\/p>\n Still eating land from under <\/em><\/p>\n The ribs of the dead (from \u2018The Field of Tplani\u2019) <\/em><\/p>\n Having the colour of North Winds <\/em><\/p>\n The river was the wind\u2019s portrait<\/em><\/p>\n Standing over trees (From \u2018The Wind\u2019s Portrait\u2019) <\/em><\/p>\n Bu\u00e7papaj employs everything he loves and everything he hates in order to paint a precise portrait of his broken heart.\u00a0 The pages overflow with sunsets, mountains, birds, books, and corn fields.\u00a0 But we also see abandoned ruins, exodus engulfed in darkness, the muddy, frozen hands of children, and the dead beneath a tangle of burnt, labyrinthine roads of a ravaged land.\u00a0 The dead remind us that, despite the season of renewal, some of the most valuable losses will never be regained. As the poet writes in \u201cTotal Disillusion,\u201d \u201cHomeland has abandoned \/ His own home.\u201d<\/p>\n The poems are haunted, as the poet\u2019s heart is haunted – riddled with ghosts of the lost and an atmosphere of appalled, exhausted silence.\u00a0 In the shivers of the poet\u2019s heart, we see the dead:<\/p>\n Those already weeping <\/em><\/p>\n In graves <\/em><\/p>\n Are at the bottom of the meadow <\/em><\/p>\n Beaten by winds <\/em><\/p>\n And afraid of cows (from \u2018Ghastly Silence\u2019) <\/em><\/p>\n O abandoned trains <\/em><\/p>\n Take me to the dead<\/em><\/p>\n Weeping under the rain <\/em><\/p>\n We have to reconcile them (from \u2018The Southern Trains\u2019) <\/em><\/p>\n Despite the fact that the book ends with the prospect of destruction, I do not sense a fear of that destruction.\u00a0 Rather, there is victory in the written word and its freeing power:<\/p>\n Here rests our dream <\/em><\/p>\n That forbidden freedom had collapsed [. . .] <\/em><\/p>\n We\u2019ll go to the ruins to unbury FREEDOM <\/em><\/p>\n And feed on IT our papers written <\/em><\/p>\n Amidst mud <\/em><\/p>\n On the day we defeated fear (from \u2018The Square\u2019) <\/em><\/p>\n \u201cFear had conquered the world,\u201d the poet says in \u201cBlack Fear.\u201d\u00a0 Perhaps, then, the invisible victory is in overcoming fear and thus freeing the spirit of mankind to profess the truth\u2014which is precisely what Bu\u00e7papaj does in writing The Invisible Victory.<\/p>\n Hope hasn\u2019t abandoned me <\/em><\/p>\n In this ward of horror <\/em><\/p>\n Light a wooden fire <\/em><\/p>\n Over this desolate world <\/em><\/p>\n Say prayers for me in Albanian <\/em><\/p>\n For I am alive and <\/em><\/p>\n I don\u2019t want to lose (from \u2018A Letter to my Mother\u2019)\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n In poems such as \u201cThe Wind\u2019s Statue,\u201d we find another irony: the violence was aimed at the poet, as he stands for all who require freedom of expression.\u00a0 Yet the voices of the people survived in him, while the people themselves were murdered.\u00a0 The victory is evident in the fact that, despite their deaths, they were not silenced, and that is because one survivor with a voice and a gift was not afraid.\u00a0 Many more after me will sing praises of Muj\u00eb Bu\u00e7papaj\u2019s great work.\u00a0 The Invisible Victory is a gorgeous, timeless victory.<\/p>\n Field of solitude remaining<\/em><\/p>\n Ripe corn<\/em><\/p>\n Sprouting from children\u2019s hands<\/em><\/p>\n Sun falling in marsh<\/em><\/p>\n Writing in vapour<\/em><\/p>\n Blowing wind<\/em><\/p>\n The girl giving in<\/em><\/p>\n In tall grass<\/em><\/p>\n Shrouded only by shadow<\/em><\/p>\n Love coming<\/em><\/p>\n From begging<\/em><\/p>\n Unspoken victories<\/em><\/p>\n Do not exist<\/em><\/p>\n But Harvesting <\/em><\/p>\n Is in forgetting waters<\/em><\/p>\n Life<\/em><\/p>\n Not enough<\/em><\/p>\n For Men<\/em><\/p>\n For Men<\/em><\/p>\n To do good<\/em><\/p>\n Colour of Northern storm<\/em><\/p>\n River winds portrait<\/em><\/p>\n Into standing trees<\/em><\/p>\n Man built<\/em><\/p>\n The other side of life and river<\/em><\/p>\n Between rain and field<\/em><\/p>\n But wind will have its say<\/em><\/p>\n Village\u2019s messages<\/em><\/p>\n Distant mountains<\/em><\/p>\n Receiving flying bird<\/em><\/p>\n From marshes<\/em><\/p>\n Dreams fleeing<\/em><\/p>\n Village\u2019s sad face<\/em><\/p>\n Losing forever the way<\/em><\/p>\n Leading<\/em><\/p>\n To the trembling of the Populars<\/em><\/p>\n Season of my home<\/em><\/p>\n Winds winding reminding<\/em><\/p>\n We are found ageing<\/em><\/p>\n Our dream<\/em><\/p>\n That freedom lost<\/em><\/p>\n In war won once<\/em><\/p>\n Resting here<\/em><\/p>\n Broken spirit of victory<\/em><\/p>\n Smoking wood of living tree<\/em><\/p>\n Fire in the city<\/em><\/p>\n Uprising<\/em><\/p>\n Rushing through<\/em><\/p>\n Wind\u2019s blazing window<\/em><\/p>\n Here rests our freedom<\/em><\/p>\n Forbidden<\/em><\/p>\n To enter our world<\/em><\/p>\n Dream now only<\/em><\/p>\n No hands reaching<\/em><\/p>\n![\"Muj\u00eb](\"https:\/\/sindhcourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/Muje-Bucpapaj-a-renowned-poet-and-scholar-from-Albania.jpg\")
Bu\u00e7papaj is one of the most prominent exponents of contemporary Albanian poetry<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n
He is the author of many books on literature and poetics, hundreds of journalistic writings, criticisms, essays, studies including those on regional problems<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n
THE INVISIBLE VICTORY \u00a0<\/strong><\/h1>\n
Inherent in the poems is a longing for a lost past that has not begun to fade from the reaches of memory<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n
\u201cA Letter to my Mother\u201d is the longest and one of the strongest poems in the collection.<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n
THE INVISIBLE VICTORY<\/strong><\/h1>\n
THE WIND\u2019S PORTRAIT<\/strong><\/h1>\n
THE SQUARE<\/strong><\/h1>\n