Santiago Ramos at Commonweal:
When the pandemic began, Albanian philosopher Lea Ypi decided to use her time in lockdown to try something new. Instead of the big academic book about the meaning of freedom that she had been planning to write, she composed a memoir about growing up during the collapse of Communism in Albania. “Mostly written from a closet in Berlin,” as she would later put it, her book Free: Coming of Age in the End of History was her attempt “to muse about my grandmother’s words: ‘When it’s difficult to see clearly into the future, you have to think about what you can learn from the past.’” Free became a bestseller, and now we have the follow-up: a unique blend of fiction and family history titled Indignity: A Life Reimagined.
Ypi made the right choice: these beautiful books are more compelling, and will reach a wider audience, than any scholarly work on the same themes. Through the implications of narrative rather than philosophical argument, both books confront the famous idea referenced in Free’s subtitle: Francis Fukuyama’s “End of History.”
more here.
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