Te dheu i huaj (“In terra straniera”). Sulla traiettoria artistico-scientifica dell’esule Martin Camaj (1956-1992)

The essay reconstructs the most significant stages in the education and creative activity of Martin Camaj (1925–1992) during his years of exile in Europe. Initially in Italy (in Rome), where he had the opportunity to immerse himself in the vibrant literary debate of the time and, at the same time, to frequent the Arbëresh communities – within which he was able to rediscover the atmosphere of his native places – and later in Germany (in Munich), where he successfully continued his career as a university professor, the trajectory of this atypical Albanian intellectual’s artistic development takes shape. He is regarded as one of the leading figures of contemporary literature. Within this path, which constantly intertwines with his scholarly interests in the fields of Albanology and linguistics-areas in which he made, significant contributions alongside his poetic and narrative production-one can identify a key hermeneutic element for a proper interpretation of his poetry, which has at times been reductively and erroneously defined as merely hermetic.