The story begins in Albania now distant ’80s, when the country was still a bastion of orthodox Marxism, which by its hermetic isolation broadcast news on the waves of Radio Tirana on solitary struggle of a small country and against all surreal, charm and mystery between Marxists of the West. One of the few foreigners who managed to visit Albania in’85, in the itineraries prepared by the state she is in one of two buses of tourists who in those days crossing the country. On those trips, however, do not have much to tell, tourists and Albanians living in two ways parallel which had prevented confront.

  It will have to tell Albania from the early 90’s, when the country breaks on the international scene, with all its collective despair and anger. We meet the protagonists of those days that have changed the history of the country, young people of that on board trucks and machine the walls of Western embassies and then infiltrate and find refuge in those small pieces of land west untouchable in the heart of Tirana. They were days of high tension and chaos, which is not finished yet to comment. Today the players are made of people who tell those days of his life in perfect English with a strong pace in the region where they live.

There is talk of Albania 90s, a country disoriented, overwhelmed by pessimism, that everyone wants to leave to go abroad. These are the boom years of construction, and Tirana disfigured; large privatizations completed in a nutshell, that transform the capital into a huge suburb, abusive, without soul and without urban history, saving only the symbol of the city: Scanderbeg Square and the equestrian statue along those dark years with anger and feeling that at times suggest that writing is an Albanian irritated for the serious the city.

But then we talk about the new identity, Tirana palaces of communism which are painted with colors extravagant at the initiative of Edi Rama, the mayor artist become a symbol of the city. It even goes as the killing of buildings abusive, and return, even if modest, green spaces. One could not forget the only building that abuse was not possible to demolish a kulla (typical home in northern Albania) in which they live men according to the kanun mountains of northern Albanian otherwise risk their lives for revenge. It ‘a plague migration to the capital from the depths north Albanian people from the culture of self-organization, where even the meaning of the statement had a much lesser degree than the rest of the country. It ‘a phenomenon that is part of Albania contemporary, which is changing the character of the city, between old prejudices and new. The emptying of the mountains Caiazza translates into a complaint for lacking social and economic policies, for the forgotten north of the country, even from the Prime Minister Berisha, son of the north, elected with great zealously and blind loyalty from its original inhabitants of that region.

But the visiting Albania, in his numerous visits of the last twenty years, is made up of friends who tell their communist past and their present. And ‘the country where one third of the population moved abroad, and returning in the summer cities and beaches, bringing with them the second generation, that of Albanian children who barely speak, as in childhood the author. They are the same friends, once intent to leave the country, today we go abroad for tourism or study experiences which then will use to return to his country.

Among friends, also distinguished personality, the writer Dritero Agolli, which analyses the current policy Albanian but also speaks of the past? It can not fail to mention his wife Russian repatriated for political reasons, a horrific phenomenon that has marked the Albanian elite after the war. Among the interviewees also Ramiz Alia, the last leader of Communist power, which expresses itself in an Albanian product, studied in the fascist era.

There is wonder in speaking the perception of Kosovo, between mistrust and prejudices that belie the expectations of a foreigner in Albania, but also of political pragmatism and European summarized in the words of poet more contemporary Albanian Mimoza Ahmeti: “We wish peace and prosperity for Kosovars as to the Serbs. ” To conclude in a Tirana open city, where citizens of Balkan countries live and work undisturbed, while the nightlife Tirana often for the best soundtrack music Serb.

“In high seas” describes Albania changing, and a capital that among the myriad problems applies to acquire a European identity. It ‘a book that serves to fill the void of information that has covered Albania in recent years, once leaving the chronicle of black Albanian newspapers. Need to Albanians who want to know closely a country that remains unknown, but also serves the Albanians to relive their most recent history: the country, crises and transformations but also the problems of today that tend to be pushed into oblivion, Albania pragmatic and fascinated projected into the future.