Engjellushe Icka, your tour guide

We are very excited to introduce a new, occasional feature on NG USA’s platform, Presenting Pogradec. Whether you have been to southeastern Albania, are thinking of going, or are from there but are living somewhere else right now, this series will provide an authentic, in-depth look at some of the people and things that make the area around Pogradec unique and wonderful. We will run a new article each month this year.

This series is the work of Engjellushe Icka, a Pogradec native with roots that go back many generations Ms. Icka has an MA and MBA in business management from the Economic Faculty of the University of Tirana, and she has been a lecturer in Management at Nehemiah Gateway University since 2015. Her father was the noted teacher and woodcarving artist Llazi Icka. She combines a passion for study with a lifetime of personal knowledge of this city by the lake.

Her first piece will talk about Lasgush Poradeci, a writer so tied to Pogradec he put it in his name. When he was born, Albania was still under Ottoman rule. He died in 1987, in the waning days of the Communist regime. His work is remarkable—and virtually impossible to translate into English.

Read the article here.