Review: Mud Sweeter than Honey: Voices of Communist Albania

Mud Sweeter than Honey: Voices of Communist Albania by Margo Rejmer
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This upcoming translation from Restless Books is so absorbing that I could not put it down. Albania doesn't get a lot of attention and I didn't know much about it - it turns out that was intentional as the country was cut off from the rest of the world for so long. Scholars consider it the harshest Communist regime. The author conducted years of oral history interviews and used them to tell a larger story of a country under the heaviest heel. She includes a wide range of experiences, but of course interviews can only share the experience of survivors.

The writing and translation are stellar, making a very readable work, apart of course from the violence that is depicted. I've been talking about it to everyone around me since I finished reading it.

I had a copy from the publisher through Edelweiss; it comes out November 2.

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