Lea Ypi's novel 'Indignité' explores family history and political trauma in the Balkans

Lea Ypi, Albanian philosopher and novelist, discusses her book 'Indignité' (Calmann-Levy) on the RFI program 'Idées'. The novel traces the life of her grandmother Léman, born in 1918 in Salonika to an Ottoman aristocratic family, through the fall of the Ottoman Empire, King Zog's monarchy, fascist occupation, Nazi invasion, Enver Hoxha's communist dictatorship, and post-communist transition. The story begins with a 1941 photo of Léman smiling on her honeymoon in the Dolomites during Albania's fascist occupation, which went viral and sparked moral judgments. Ypi's research in state archives uncovered informant reports, surveillance files, and incomplete documents revealing pervasive police surveillance under communism. The title 'Indignité' addresses human dignity threatened by political systems. Ypi, a political theory professor at the London School of Economics and Kant specialist, also teaches at the Collège de France on 'the invention of Europe through language and culture'. The novel questions who has the right to tell a life story and reflects on moral responsibility in extreme historical circumstances.