Ian Thomson

Dark days in the Balkans: life under Enver Hoxha and beyond

Survivors of Albania’s Stalinist regime remember decades of starvation, torture and religious persecution, followed by anarchy in the 1990s

The towering bronze statue of Hoxha in Tirana was toppled during the riots of February 1990. [Getty Images]
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  • Free: Coming of Age at the End of History

    Lea Ypi

    Allen Lane, pp. 313, £20

  • Mud Sweeter than Honey: Voices of Communist Albania

    Margo Rejmer, translated by Zosia Krasodomska-Jones and Antonia Lloyd-Jones

    MacLehose Press, pp. 320, £18

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