"[ Indignity is] gripping, evoking the work of Elena Ferrante in its invocations of fevered girlhood, marriage, friendship and intellectual debate in webs of family, class struggle and politics . In Ypi''s work, Albania comes across as a fascinating, soulful place, at once fiercely itself and implicated in wider geopolitics. So, too, is Ypi''s quest to understand her grandmother both particular and universal, historical and timely . by the final page, we both know and do not know Leman. Yet she will stay with me -- fragmented, buffeted by history, eroded by time, but indelible all the same." --Elizabeth Graver, The New York Times "A less subtle philosopher--one more eager to wear her academic training on her sleeve--might offer complementary exegeses on dignity, but Ypi''s most overt interrogation of the notion takes place at the level of form . [She] recovers her grandmother''s dignity not by performing philosophical pyrotechnics but by recovering her life and its language." --Becca Rothfeld, The Washington Post "The lack of agreed-upon history [in the Balkans] makes building anything new impossible.
Ypi''s book is an intervention against this oblivion . [Her] disorienting questions force us to reevaluate our own assumptions about the present. As she takes us on a tour of her family''s twentieth-century history, it becomes clear that the clean break we like to think we''ve made with the past is illusory." --Lily Lynch, Jacobin "Thrilling . Guiding readers to be curious about their own roots, Ypi''s exquisite research and compassionate curiosity for the past make for another great read." --Courtney Eathorne, Booklist "A noted philosopher explores her homeland and the family secrets it conceals . [ Indignity is] A beguiling, elegant book whose surprise ending, just one of its many real-life twists and turns, befits a mystery." -- Kirkus (starred review) "Heartfelt .
poignant . a moving meditation on the quagmire of probing the gaps in one''s family history." -- Publishers Weekly "A captivating journey of imagination and longing, and a gentle uncovering of a deep buried history that goes to the very heart of identity with brilliant storytelling." --Philippe Sands, author of East West Street "Lea Ypi goes deep into Europe''s forgotten past to explore who owns the story of a life and who gets to tell it. A gripping tale of secret police, fractured families, and undying loyalties, this is also a remarkable reflection on how history is made and what happens to the people who get left behind." --David Runciman, author of The History of Ideas "Renowned for making autobiography philosophical, the great Lea Ypi now plunges into the life and times of her grandmother, with exquisite and memorable results. The search for answers in a family past leads to infinite questions--and raises especially nagging and profound ones about how a dignified life is possible, especially when history continues to haunt our time." --Samuel Moyn, author of Liberalism Against Itself and Humane " Indignity is a delicate and powerful reimagining of a life and an act of watchful, questing, loving witness to the turmoil of the fractured Balkans in the mid-twentieth century.
In beautifully reimagined scenes interspersed with original State Security Service reports, Ypi brings vividly to life human beings making hard decisions and living with the consequences. And she''s able to interrogate the kinds of truths we want from archives--and from life--some of which we''re unlikely to get. Most of all, it is Ypi''s own fine and compassionate moral sense of human complexities that makes this a superb read." --Anna Funder, author of Wifedom and Stasiland -Anna Funder, author of Wifedom and Stasiland lunges into the life and times of her grandmother, with exquisite and memorable results. The search for answers in a family past leads to infinite questions--and raises especially nagging and profound ones about how a dignified life is possible, especially when history continues to haunt our time." --Samuel Moyn, author of Liberalism Against Itself and Humane " Indignity is a delicate and powerful reimagining of a life and an act of watchful, questing, loving witness to the turmoil of the fractured Balkans in the mid-twentieth century. In beautifully reimagined scenes interspersed with original State Security Service reports, Ypi brings vividly to life human beings making hard decisions and living with the consequences. And she''s able to interrogate the kinds of truths we want from archives--and from life--some of which we''re unlikely to get.
Most of all, it is Ypi''s own fine and compassionate moral sense of human complexities that makes this a superb read." --Anna Funder, author of Wifedom and Stasiland -Anna Funder, author of Wifedom and Stasiland r, author of Wifedom and Stasiland -Anna Funder, author of Wifedom and Stasiland.