"If a people""Have no poets""And no poetry of their own""For a National Anthology""Then treachery and barking""Will do the trick"With these words, a challenge is laid down in this new volume of Albanian poetry. Albania, however, has a dynamic tradition of literature. "Lightning from the Depths" is the first English collection to present the full range of Albanian verse. Albanian literature has had many lives. The early Christian traditions disappeared as Islam and the Ottoman Empire took over. Muslim literature, too, withered when the nation strove to become an independent European country....

"If a people""Have no poets""And no poetry of their own""For a National Anthology""Then treachery and barking""Will do the trick"With these words, a challenge is laid down in this new volume of Albanian poetry. Albania, however, has a dynamic tradition of literature. "Lightning from the Depths" is the first English collection to present the full range of Albanian verse. Albanian literature has had many lives. The early Christian traditions disappeared as Islam and the Ottoman Empire took over. Muslim literature, too, withered when the nation strove to become an independent European country....