BESA

BESA recounts my life, beginning as a young boy of a large, happy three-generation family living together in southern Albania. The Bylykbashi’s were prosperous land owners and store owners, but when Enver Hoxha and his Communist regime muscled their way into power, that idyllic life quickly fell apart for my family, my village, and my country at large.My story—sometimes horrible, sometimes hilarious, and sometimes heartrending—gives a factual account of the survival tactics I invented as a boy t