By Francesca Gallello Gabriel Italo Nel Gomez – Director of VELIERO Publishing House

Translated by: Angela Costa

It is with great emotion that I announce the publication, in print and digital editions on Amazon and Kindle, of the novel "Unfortunate September" by Skifter Këlliçi, an author and public figure of Albanian origin, who has marked the cultural and journalistic history of his country and who today lives in the United States.

Unfortunate September is a work that combines fiction and memory, inspired by the tragedy of September 11. Through imaginary characters and narrative reconstructions, Këlliçi guides us through the shadows of the Twin Towers, within the suspenseful moments of a day that changed the world. The voice of journalist Sokol Kama becomes a symbol of the moral duty to tell, giving dignity to the victims and transforming silence into testimony.

The author decided to write this novel almost ten years after the attack, prompted by his personal experience as a security guard at Boston's Logan Airport, from where the hijacked planes took off. No one had yet dared to narrate this event in literary form: Këlliçi does so with simplicity and strength, choosing literature as a space for memory.

When I received the manuscript, I admit that I was not entirely convinced. The title made me think of one of the many books on September 11. But my dear friend, journalist, translator, international promoter, poet and director of the literary magazine Myriade, Angela Costa, recognizing the value of the author and his work, encouraged me to read it and not to reject it, even though I was full of commitments. So, reading the first pages, I was immediately passionate: the story captivated and touched me. I read the book in one breath, with the desire to bring it to Italian readers.

As director of Veliero APS, a small publishing house born to preserve beauty and truth and to give space to valuable authors, I have taken care, (together with my valuable collaborators), of every detail: from the translation from English to Italian, the layout, to the cover, fragile but strong at the same time. Publishing this book means offering readers a gesture of light, an invitation to remember not to reopen pain, but to give shape to silence.

The novel is not limited to the narrative of September 11: it is a mosaic of lives, emotions and cultures that come together in a moment of global tragedy. The story of Steve and Jacqueline, interrupted on the eve of marriage, becomes a symbol of all interrupted lives. Multicultural America appears as a land of hospitality, where people of different origins meet and resist fanaticism. Këlliç's writing is simple and direct, but never banal. Every word is carefully selected, every scene is constructed to leave a mark. It is not limited to narration: it denounces. It shows the shortcomings of the system, the omissions, but does so with balance and respect, trying more to understand than to accuse.
Skifter Këlliçi (Tirana, 1938) is a writer, publicist and well-known sports commentator for Albanian Radio and Television, where he worked from 1959 to 1999. A graduate in literature from the University of Tirana, he has lived in Boston since 1999. He is the author of many historical novels and works for children, including On the Trail (1972), from which the award-winning film at the Giffoni Festival was made. He has written texts dedicated to football and scripts for cinema, thus confirming his diversity and cultural commitment.

Unfortunate September is a work that touches, questions, inspires. It is a tribute to the victims of September 11, but also a hymn to resilience, diversity and hope. At a time when memory risks disappearing, this novel reminds us that memory is an act of justice. Veliero APS is honored to offer readers this voice, with the conviction that literature can still illuminate what history has darkened.

Let's ask the author a few questions:

1 – What prompted you to write a novel inspired by a universal tragedy like September 11?

I was driven by the tragedy of that terrible day itself, part of which I personally experienced while working as a security guard at a checkpoint at Boston International Airport. At that place I saw five young men of Arab appearance passing by: they were so sincere, so smiling, and no one at that moment would have thought that they could be terrorists, ready to hijack a plane and hit one of the Twin Towers in New York. Just like five others, who were going to hijack a second plane to hit the other Tower.

That same day, watching Bin Laden on television proudly boasting that the tragedy was the work of Al Qaeda, I thought that he could become one of the characters in a future novel. I began to carefully read the articles of the major American newspapers dedicated to September 11, collecting data on the terrorists. Then I stopped my preparatory work, convinced that American writers, much more famous and authoritative, were doing the same thing and that their works would be of a much higher level than the novel I intended to write.

Years passed and, apart from the film World Trade Center by the great American director Oliver Stone (2006), dedicated to the sacrifice of firefighters who saved many lives amidst the ruins of the Towers, no literary work was written that directly addressed the dramatic events of September 11.

Two years later, while reading the book Albanians of America by the renowned Kosovar publicist Vehbi Bajrami, director of the Albanian-American newspaper Illyria published in New York, I came across a long article dedicated to three Albanians: Frrok Camaj, Mon Gjonbalaj and Simon Dedevukaj, who lost their lives in the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001. I thus discovered the connection between the events at Boston's Logan Airport, from where the terrorists departed, and those at the Twin Towers destroyed by the hijacked planes.

In the spring of 2008, I began writing the novel, which I titled Shtatori Fatkeq (Disastrous September). The book was first published in Tirana in 2010 by the Albin publishing house and will be reprinted by the Jonalda publishing house, also in Tirana. With revisions and changes? Of course. An interesting idea was suggested to me by Zylyftar Plaku, publisher of “Jonalda”, also a writer: the novel could begin right at the Logan Airport checkpoint, with the enigmatic dialogue between two terrorists about how they would carry out their satanic plan, without revealing how.

One morning on April 8, 2008, as I continued to write, I heard a few knocks on the door. I opened it and saw a man of average height, a pale face, and gray eyes. After a brief greeting, he asked me: “I’m from the FBI, are you Skifter Kelliçi?” I nodded and invited him in, thinking he was here about a dispute between neighbors. But it wasn’t a neighborhood cop: it was an FBI agent, who immediately asked me if I had been in a skyscraper at the intersection of Washington Street and State Street and if I had asked if there were security guards on the upper floors, just like on the ground floor. I answered “yes,” and I realized that I had aroused suspicion.

I explained that I was a writer and that I was working on a novel about 9/11. Since the Twin Towers no longer existed, I wanted to know if there was a security guard in that 57-story skyscraper, as there probably had been in the Twin Towers. I thought he was convinced. Then I mustered up the courage to tell him that if the FBI had paid the same attention to the security checkpoints at Logan Airport before 9/11 and if a rule had been added to the flight rules prohibiting passengers from carrying scissors, razors, deodorants, or bottles, as was the case immediately after 9/11, the tragedy would have been avoided. Because these were the very items that the terrorists used to neutralize the flight attendants and pilots and thus take control of the planes. The FBI agent did not speak.

2 – What message or reflection do you want to convey to Italian readers with this new publication curated by Veliero APS?

First of all, I would like to thank the director of this publishing house, the writer and publicist Francesca Gallello, as well as her collaborators, who appreciated the novel and published it so quickly. I want Italian readers to be attracted not only by the events of this tragedy, which will be 25 years old next September 11, but also by the way they are developed in the novel, based on historical data about the Taliban and their philosophy, concretized in characters like Bin Laden and his close associates, as well as on personal data about the terrorists, who appear in the novel with their real names.

3 – The novel was first published in Albanian, then in English, and now in Italian. How do you think the reception of the book varies in different languages ​​and cultures?

In the Albanian text, I have tried to describe the events with the richest possible vocabulary, based on the experience of our best traditional writers and especially translators, who have enriched the Albanian language with their translations. Of course, this richness is difficult to convey in translations into foreign languages, also because of the new words, but I believe that even in English and Italian the translation sounds fluent and natural.

4 – What has been the biggest challenge in telling such a painful and global event through narrative form?

The transformation of this tragedy from a purely documentary event into a literary work has not been easy for me, especially since the event occurred within a few hours. A literary work, as is known, has other and much more difficult requirements than when writing a documentary text. I hope I have achieved my goal.

5 – Living far from Albania, do you miss your roots?

That's what I thought when, together with my wife and son, we moved to Boston in March 1999. But here I found Albanian friends and also American, Italian and Russian friends, in the field of literature and sports, my second passion, with whom I meet regularly, especially with Albanians at the Vatra Association club.
In addition, I continue to collaborate not only with the most well-known Albanian media, with files on very important events in modern Albanian history and the history of Albanian football, but I have also published several novels in Albania, including the novel we are talking about, dedicated to September 11.
6 – How does your Albanian identity continue to influence your writing and vision of the world?

I would never have thought that, by moving to America, I would continue to publish novels with Albanian-American themes, such as Unfortunate September, A Woman Between Two Men (with a socio-dramatic theme, written together with my American colleague Carrie Hooper and also published in America), and most recently C-35 US Downed on Albanian Soil, which recounts the events of the crew of an American military plane that, on November 7, 1943, was forced to land in a region of central Albania. Helped by local residents, they managed to escape the persecution of the occupying German army and, after two months, reached the coast, from where, thanks to an English military ship, they returned to Bari, where they were originally supposed to arrive.

7 – What is your relationship with the Albanian community and the diaspora today?
I wrote above regarding this issue.

8 – You were among the first sports radio commentators in Albania and a historic voice of television. What memories do you have from that period?
Radio and television sports journalism has been and is my greatest passion after literary writing. In 1958, still a twenty-year-old student, I created the Sports Section on Radio Tirana. A year later, already a journalist, I became the third Albanian sports radio commentator. In 1966, I began commenting on football matches for the first time on Experimental Television and in 1970 I also founded the Sports Section, now on Albanian Television.

9 – Is there a particular episode from your journalistic career that you still hold dear to your heart?
We Albanians followed international sports and other programs from RAI with rudimentary antennas, which were banned in 1973 by order of the communist dictator Enver Hoxha, in power until his death in 1985. In 1972, I proposed that sports matches, especially Italian and world football, be broadcast by Albanian Television, with footage taken by RAI and with sports commentary by me, through headphones, to follow the comments of Italian commentators, especially Nando Martellini. Albanian sportspeople, when I commented on the Italy-Belgium match in April 1972, held at the San Siro stadium in Milan, thought that I was commenting directly from that place. But when, two hours later, they heard my voice coming from Wembley Stadium in London, where England-West Germany was playing, they realized that I was commenting from an Albanian Television studio. It was truly an important event, because from that moment the matches began to be seen even in the most remote regions of Albania, where the waves of the RAI television channel did not reach. When I showed these episodes to Nando Martellini in an interview for Radio Tirana in February 1994, recorded in a private radio studio in Rome, he was surprised and pleased.

10 – How much has your experience as a sports columnist influenced your narrative style and ability to tell stories?
My friends, when they read a literary book written by me, often tell me that the description of events is wrapped in a way that reminds them of the emotional accounts of football matches on the radio or television.

11 – After so many years of writing, journalism, and screenwriting, how would you define your mission as an author today?
It will continue until I am no longer in this life, even though I will be 88 next January. In the field of sports, I recently published the voluminous book Topi sajt povdravno i sajd, with memoirs, stories, sketches and analyses in this field. I also completed several novels years ago, including A Woman Between Two Men, written as I mentioned above together with my American colleague Carrie Hooper, published in Albania and America. In the American version, she intends to propose it to Veliero APS, with the hope that it will also be published in Italy, since it has been positively received by American readers.

12 – What role do you give to literature in preserving the collective memory of tragic events like September 11?
Historical books undoubtedly have a great cognitive value, but literary books, especially the characters that carry these events at a high level, remain much more embedded in the reader's mind. The invasion of Albania by fascist Italy on April 7, 1939, the Italian and Albanian reader has known since childhood through school textbooks and then also from other books with a historical character. But when you read the novel by the world-famous Albanian writer Ismail Kadare, several times a candidate for the Nobel Prize, The General of the Dead Army, through the characters of an Italian general and an Italian priest who come to Albania to search for and collect the remains of Italian soldiers who fell during World War II, you also understand the strong symbolic value of that war, which remains even more embedded in the memory. I hope that my novel The Unfortunate September will have a similar symbolic value.

13 – Looking at your long career, what do you consider to be your greatest contribution to Albanian and international culture?
I believe that I have contributed to Albanian culture as a television sports chronicler, as I have described above, and especially as a writer who has brought sports to artistic literature, with stories, novels, documentary and artistic films, as well as with journalistic and scientific books. I hope that, in addition to the novel Shtatori Fatkeq, if they are published in other foreign languages, the novel with a historical-ancient theme Secrets of the Palace of Octavian, dedicated to the wars of the Illyrians, the ancestors of the Albanian people against the Roman invaders; Love and Intrigue in Olympus, with an Illyrian-Greek-Roman mythological theme, still unpublished; and C-35 US downed on Albanian soil, with an Albanian-American theme.

14 – What hope or lesson would you like to leave with young readers approaching your novel today?
I want them to appreciate it as a work that artistically leaves an indelible mark on such a tragic event, especially since to date it is the first and only true literary work in the world dedicated to this event.

VELIERO APS thanks you for the interview.

Thank you Francesca Gallello!