Mustafa Nano has chosen to provoke with a strong thesis on Albania’s relationship with the European Union: in his view, the country still does not deserve the standards it claims to be reaching. At the promotion of his new novel Ode to Joy, the author shifts the debate from day-to-day politics to a deeper question: how far is Albania really from the values proclaimed in the name of integration?
A novel with a political backdrop and a pessimistic tone
Nano sets the story in Albania in 2030, but without presenting a country that has left behind the old mechanisms of power. At the center are personal ambitions, political balances and interests that, according to the work’s description, continue to prevail over the common good.
The author has openly acknowledged the book’s bleak tone, saying that he is pessimistic and that in the work he conveys his despair. From this perspective, Albania in 2030 does not appear as a success story, but as a continuation of many of today’s wounds.
“Integration is being handed to us as a gift”
In his statements, Nano questions not only the pace of rapprochement with the EU, but also the country’s real alignment with European values. According to him, European civilization rests on norms and standards that clash with some of the behaviors and codes that, in his reading, continue to weigh heavily on Albanian society.
It is precisely here that he offers one of the debate’s strongest lines, when he says that EU integration is being handed to Albania as a gift. It is a stance that challenges the optimistic official narratives about the European path and puts the gap between political rhetoric and domestic reality back at the center.
An ironic title in the face of division and disappointment
Ode to Joy, published by UET Press, takes its title from Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, also associated with the anthem of the European Union. But the title itself, according to comments made at the promotion, carries a clear irony in light of what the book narrates.
Belinda Budini, dean of the Faculty of Humanities, Education and Liberal Arts at UET, described the work as a text in which there is dissonance between the title and the content, with tensions, division and disappointment within the narrative.
From protest to an unchanged political culture
During the discussion with lecturers and students, Nano also gave his position on the protests that have been under way in Albania since June. According to him, the movement gained momentum after the serious incident in Zvërnec, when a person was dragged along the ground, rather than from a prior accumulation of discontent.
He said he supports the protests, but opposes violence, arguing that it does not convey a message. In line with the novel, this analysis also suggests a society that reacts strongly only after shocking episodes, while structural problems have long remained present.
At its core, Ode to Joy does not present a transformed Albania, but a country where names and facades change, while relations with power, corruption and the crisis of values remain familiar.
Between the author’s pessimism and the European symbolism of the title, the book enters the debate not as a celebration of integration, but as a challenge to the illusions that often accompany this process.