Gjergj Fishta

Gjergj Fishta was born on October 23, 1871, in Fishtë, Zadrimë. Entering the Franciscan Order, he studied philosophy and theology in Bosnia, where he formed deep friendships with Croatian poets and internalized the heroic Slavic and Homeric folk-epic traditions.

In 1908, Fishta served as president of the historic Congress of Monastir, which officially selected the Latin-script alphabet for the Albanian language. His crowning life work, the thirty-canto epic Lahuta e Malcís (The Highland Lute, 1937), written in North Albanian Gheg dialect, celebrates the customs, Kanun code, and anti-Ottoman resistance of northern highlanders. Nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature, his works were banned under Enver Hoxha's regime before being triumphantly restored after 1990.