Centre for Romanian Studies

Parid TEFERICI
(b. 1972. Albania),

The Poet
They shoot at me where I am not to be found.
It comes to pass that they raise my hand from the table
To see if I am not hiding there.
It comes to pass that I must give way
To someone hastening by in search of me.
It comes to pass that they set me on fire
To look for me in the darkness.
However much I stand with my back against the wall
They do not shoot me.

[Poeti, from the volume Meqenëse sytë, Tirana: Aleph 2003, p. 50.
Translated from the Albanian by Robert Elsie and Janice Mathie-Heck Elsie]

Parid TEFERICI (b. 1972, Albania)

POETUL
Parid TEFERICI, (b. 1972, Albania)

Mă împuşcă acolo unde nu sunt.
Se întâmplă chiar să-mi ridice braţul la masă
Să afle dacă nu mă ascund acolo.
Se întâmplă să lase să treacă
Omul care se grăbeşte să mă găsească
Se întâmplă chiar să imi dea foc
Ca să mă dibuie mai bine în întuneric.
Şi totuşi, deşi stau cu spatele la zid
Nu mă împuşcă.

(Rendered in Romanian
by Constantin ROMAN, London,
© 2012, Copyright Constantin ROMAN)

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE:
Poet and painter Parid Teferiçi (b. 1972) was born and raised in Kavaja. From 1990 to 1994, he studied computer science at the University of Tirana and from 1994 to 1999, he studied economics at the Bocconi University of Milan, Italy. From 1999-2001, he served as head archivist at the library of the Don Calabria Institute in Rome, and in 2001 became curator of the visual arts section of the Cini Cultural Institute in Ferrara. He has exhibited his painting in Italy. In 2005, he returned to Albania to take part in the parliamentary elections as a candidate for the Republican Party in his native Kavaja.
Teferiçi has published two slender volumes of poetry: Bërë me largësi (Made from a Distance), Tirana 1996, and Meqenëse sytë (Since the Eyes), Tirana 2003. His discriminating works have proven him to be among Albania’s major contemporary poets.