Interview of DRITËRO AGOLLI given to the deputy editor-in-chief of the newspaper “Jonë”, Luç M. Rama Not only as a man of letters with a formed personality, but also as a very sociable person and active in the country's social life and active as well in the political life of recent years? I have not understood what the point of your question is. As for the matter of letters, then with them a person is reduced to ashes and becomes dust and smoke. As a social person I may indeed be called that, because I frequent many circles and I was also tied in the past to politics. I jumped into politics in the period 1973-’90 and I was even elected to parliament. Yet there I turned as yellow as a quince gone sour. It has often happened to me that, before the parliamentary session began, I would read a poem. Lord, what a strong desire would seize me then to leave and not go there at all! Now I remember that whole period with sadness. Again, a person must be realistic and understand that, just as there were bad people, there were also many honest and wise ones, people of character and broad culture, to whom we owe no small part of the many good things that were done then. Has your creative work ever been hindered by politics? More than hindered, it was encouraged. Since somewhere, very far away in the depth of my being, I felt they were putting me on a set track, I wanted to break out of it. I felt the need for freedom and for myself. I have said before that art is helped very little by politics, especially when it suffocates. That is what also happened in my early poetry. — [text continues partially unreadable due to folding and page orientation][?]