Merita Kuçi Thartori: MAN CHOOSES HIS TIME.
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No writer would be complete without stories. That’s what I thought as I finished reading the prose of the poet Sherif Gashi. I would call these stories, profound poetic prose, inner descriptions of feelings, monologues or social and societal philosophy about man in life and man in the afterlife, in eternity. I read here about the divine man, but also the earthly man.
We are used to meeting fairies in the legends of Muji and Halili, in the hours of Gjergj Fishta’s Lahuta. They have nourished us with compassionate or emotional states, with struggle, with effort and pride. This is what our prose writer Gashi does in his own way, by presenting us in the introduction of the book (leaving aside his clarity, the purpose for which he wrote these stories, to offer the reader the optics of his retina of light) the verses in “Journey to Self-Awareness” in Zgjim i Përtotur and in the epilogue “Return to Memory, to Origin, to Wounds” in Përtoja e Zgjim.
In the introduction we have a profile of the creator, who experiences pain like his father. Further on in the prose, that of the Odyssey, the return to the land full of history of the ancestors, to spiritualize the tireless hope (says the poet), he goes to the breadth of events, to the souls that seek peace, like the river that revives, the whole and in closing the man towards eternity, his historical mission becomes clearer, that is, of the poet himself, who does not remain a vision among myths or legends, but is a story lived with compassion, but now not only the river, but also the stone, perhaps the author's murana roars, the whole.
The author's subheading, his father, who has instilled in his son courage, hope, with the essence of a man, for better or for worse. The tragic events of Tivar 1945, like a grave within the soul of the author's father and a wound of Albanian history, are the origins of the fate of the Albanian. This barbaric massacre, brought here not by chance, is precisely the way of remembrance, honor and respect for history, for truths that must not be forgotten, but must always be witnessed.
We know about Homer's blindness, about the foundation of the ancient story "The Odyssey", but the Homerics with Albanian history are alive, they narrate the first, the touched, the lived ones, like the author's father, who will appear to the author as a fortune teller even on his journey of exile, that cold March night in 1999, precisely towards the motherland, where the two Drinas met, where they would miss the magnificent Gjallica, the cradle that had rocked their lives, in itself a place in the heart of Europe, but which for the greed of the Serbian machine, had to try that barbaric journey again, where the return journey next to Prizren of smoky houses, the birthday of the daughter Xona without a cake and without a celebration, would raise new dreams for the author of his beloved, his family.
The symbolism of Lahutar is always in function of the author's narrative, whose observations go beyond time, where the wandering author has taken place, the mother's testimony as self-sacrifice, takes place on the pages of this prose with stories, not simply as a personal story, but it is the history of a people. This is also the author's intention, where through lived events to testify.
A special place in these stories is occupied by the figure of the writer, his fellow citizen, his friend of the light Ragip Sylaj. The philosophy of the deceased is conveyed by the author in contrast to the words body and shame. This dualism comes from the author both as an internal monologue, sometimes as a direct dialogue, is the duality of understanding from the reality where fellow citizens live. The thoughts of the deceased, the expression of his forehead, the raised cheekbones, the slightly oval beard, his tall and so dry, often make his speech incomprehensible, but he who was a volcano of thought, he knew how to ask for forgiveness for what he could not do, the body axis - to feel valuable and ashamed among all - to not be like many others, while our author counters that many others have experienced the pain, he has had it as part of himself and that both choose to live between the sun and the earth, that for the wise the sun is a journey of the soul while the earth is to be given to eternity with love.
The writer then travels through the confrontation with absence and pain. His journey through the Fairy's Path, the foggy April, to reach the mirage, the Sun Stone and as in mythology among extraordinary elements, will be helped by the Fairy of the Mountain, (to escape that path that haunts passers-by), by the Fairy's Eye to reach her Bay and finally be reflected where the Fairy herself was reflected.
The unification of the man with the Fairy, the unification of finding peace in the end, this makes the genius of a creation extraordinary both in retrospect and in actuality.
By touching the three spells of the Fairy, the eye, the bay and her path, the author, that is, the pilgrim traveler, if the Fairy distributed love of yesterday, present, future, our author manages to see further. He sees birth, desires, love, strength, judgment, he sees the scattered pieces gathered, to go into synchrony with the Sun Stone, that is, with light, light here as a symbol of life, of continuity to remain, to not be forgotten.
In the third part of the journey, the typification of two beds, the bed where only pains rest and the bed where pains and sufferings rest is precisely the typification of the two worlds, that of the living and Hades, that of the dead. The course of the description of the internal state, the tortures in this journey, take on the fullness of meaning with only one phrase of the author ... the struggle of man with himself. The labeling of man with the qualities of yesterday, today and the future, are in fact only notions, because the author focuses in the end on the present, so he addresses himself with force and says: - Think!
The head identifies with the thoughts and as if the narrator expresses himself worriedly...no one wants to know about them. He places himself in three times, yesterday, today and tomorrow, as a conscious, universal and pained pilgrim, because alone he cannot make a big difference.
His consciousness, although in pain and in an uncertain direction, does not choose to be fascinated, that is, to take advantage of easy paths, privileges as we say today. Left me, right me... he appears, but chooses to become resistant, because only he is on the path. -I remained me, - says the author.
And I wander without being tempted, without changing the inherited norms and values. Even within the chaos of society in time, he carries it as a daily, does not remain silent, but dares to reflect. This becomes evident even in the closing song of the prose where, without forgetting the pains, the testament, the myth or the souls without a grave, he now addresses the full moon, for life with words and faith!
This is how our author's epicism chooses to roar, the whole thing within his river, his conscience, which comes from the roots to our days.
Somewhere among this heartfelt prose, as I said above, sometimes epic, philosophical, sometimes lyrical with a metaphorical spirit, you will find it quoted that: "... This is not a personal story, it is the story of a people!"
Heartfelt congratulations my friend.
Merita Thartori Kuçi.
16.02.2026.
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