Flutura Açka (1966) was born in Elbasan and graduated in economics in 1988 from the University of Tirana. She worked for a number of years as a journalist in Elbasan and for the Onufri publishing company, before founding her own publishing company, Skanderbeg Books (www.albliterature.com).

As a poet, Flutura Açka first gained wide recognition when she received the "Lyre of Struga" award at the 1997 International Nights of Poetry festival held in Struga, Macedonia. Among her major publications are the poetry volumes: Tri vjeshta larg (Three Autumns Away), Elbasan 1993; Mure vetmie (Walls of Solitude), Elbasan 1995; Festë me ankthin (Feast with Anguish), Elbasan 1997; Kënga e Aretuzës (The Song of Arethusa), Prishtina 1998; Kurth' i diellit (The Sun Trap), Tirana 2003; and the short novel Vetmi gruaje (A Woman's Solitude), Tirana 2001. A volume of her poetry has been translated into Macedonian.

Translator Robert Elsie (Vancouver, Canada, 1950) is a leading specialist in Albanian affairs. He is the author of thirty-five books on Albania and its culture, including literary translations from Albanian, and of many articles and research papers. Elsie studied at the University of British Columbia, graduating in 1972 with a degree in classical studies and linguistics. In the following years, he did postgraduate research at the Free University of Berlin, the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes and the University of Paris IV in Paris, the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies in Ireland and the University of Bonn, where he finished his doctorate in 1978 at the Linguistics Institute. From 1982 to 1987, he was employed by the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Bonn. Since that time he has worked as a freelance writer and conference interpreter, primarily for Albanian and German. He lives in the Eifel Mountains of Germany, not far from the Belgian border.

Weblinks:   www.elsie.de and www.albanianliterature.com