This is a marvelous almost magical book about growing up in Albania. It encompasses just over a decade under communism, then her teenage years during the unstable transition to democracy. Beautifully written and pivoting around Ypi’s family in all its intimacy and humour, it is quite unexpected from a professor at the London School of Economics. The story begins with a statue of Stalin but viewed from a toddler’s innocent perspective. Without appearing to meander, we learn a