The writer will spend New Year’s Eve near the doctors, in a room at Tirana hospital. Agolli is suffering from “water in the lungs” On pages 2–3 Dritëro Agolli

Ilir Babaramо For the first time in his life, Dritëro Agolli will not have a drink to toast the New Year. On New Year’s Eve he may be in a hospital room on the outskirts of Tirana, trembling between two treatment ses- sions. The patriarch is tired. The news that the great writer was ill came quite unexpectedly. He had almost been forgotten amid this political turmoil, which did not let up even during the holidays. All the more so because he had rarely spoken in public during this year. When the cannons roar, the Muses fall silent, the Latins used to say. The chatterers of public opinion do not know how many works he published this year, although they can cite precisely, by period, the number of tables he has [unclear] made politics. Everything in detail. What Nano said, how Berisha reacted. They know by heart the hermaphroditic statements from Strasbourg. But it is unlikely they can remember from school a single verse by Kadare, Lasgush, Fishta, or Dritëroi. That they have read them recently is unimaginable. Hatred has spread everywhere, through every segment of political life. But nothing can be built with hatred. The patriarch is in hospital. He is fighting illness and old age. The government and politicians have forgotten him. Perhaps they thought that, being ill, he is no longer of any use to them. The Congress of the Socialist Party is taking place many months later...” Continued on page 2