Lindenblüten für Bücher

About home, belonging, and equal opportunities - and Albania's longing for Europe. Her childhood in Albania is marked by the feeling of having to obey. Lin is a conformist in a country full of rules, a well-behaved girl: she complies, she blushes when adults speak to her. As a bookworm, she feels out of place among her peers. Her desire for education is strong - yet families like hers, who have clashed with the communists, are denied education. Lindita Arapi writes about the Albanian dictatorship, the student protests of 1990, political persecution, and the rocky path toward democracy: Europe appears as a distant, unreachable planet. Only after the change in 1990 does she have the opportunity to study. She is moved by the distance that arises when she leaves her homeland, and she wonders: How are language and home connected? Am I allowed to write about my homeland in a foreign language? She begins to write - in German, because she needs to find a new language for these experiences, for this time. "Linden Blossoms for Books" is a delicate and contemplative, a profoundly human book - a book about the desire for freedom.