Lea Ypi's 'Indignity' reconstructs her grandmother's life through archival fragments and ethical inquiry

Lea Ypi, a philosopher, presents her book 'Indignity: A Life Reimagined', which chronicles the life of her grandmother, Leman Ypi, who was born in Salonica in 1918 during the Ottoman Empire. At eighteen, Leman relocated to Tirana before World War II and wed a socialist who was later imprisoned by Albania's communist government. The story highlights the population exchanges following the 1922-23 Lausanne Conference, which displaced 1.5 million individuals, including Leman's Turkish nanny. In 1942, her father clandestinely transported a Jewish friend from Nazi-occupied Salonica to Albania, prior to the deportations to Auschwitz that decimated 85% of the city's Jewish residents. Ypi's inquiry was inspired by a viral honeymoon photograph from 1941. The book employs techniques akin to Saidiya Hartman's 'critical fabulation'. Ypi's earlier work, 'Free' (2021), examined her upbringing in communist Albania. The book was reviewed by Hannah Proctor.