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Gjeke Marinaj is about as non-traditional a student as can be found at UTD. The 43 year-old literary studies graduate student is the author and translator of numerous books of poetry, the founder and editor of an international literary journal and, after winter break, the recipient of a major international literary award.
On Dec. 24, the International Cultural Center of the Albanian Ministry of Culture awarded Marinaj 2008 Pjeter Abnori prize for literature by the International Cultural Center, part of the Albanian Ministry of Culture.
The award is given annually to an Albanian or international author in recognition of their ongoing contribution to national and world literature, essentially equivalent to the Pulitzer Prize in the United States.
None of this Marinaj could have imagined 20 years ago. At the time, he was a young underpaid and unknown journalist living under one of the most repressive governments in Europe.
Tucked away in the hall closet of his modest Richardson home amidst stacks of yellowing newsprint - articles written over the years by or about Marinaj - is a tattered copy of the newspaper Marinaj holds most dear. It is an artifact from a previous life, something that has brought Marinaj both great pain and great joy.
In it are the lines that changed his life.
The Poem
Writers spend entire careers laboring to achieve the impact Marinaj had with a single poem.
The year was 1990. The Soviet Union was on the path to dissolution, but the communist government in Albania maintained a tight grip over life in the small southeastern European country. Opposition to the regime was tantamount to treason. Any dissent was quickly silenced.
For the majority of the people, Marinaj said, life was miserable.
It was against this backdrop, in a mood of discontent, that Marinaj wrote a short but politically charged poem. Innocuously titled "Horses," the piece was a sharp critique of life in communist Albania.
"The poem was totally anti-governmental," he said. "Nobody else really could write anything like that. People who tried, they were killed. They would hang poets in middle of the city."
With the help of a sympathetic editor Marinaj published the piece in "Drita," one of the most widely read and most tightly censored newspapers in the country.
The poem was a sensation.
Papers flew off the stands; by mid-morning the entire country had sold out, but word of mouth continued to spread like wildfire. Those with a newspaper would scribble copies of the poem on scraps of paper to pass to strangers. Some recited the poem to passersby on the street. The entire country was abuzz with excitement over what the unknown young poet had written.
Leaving Home
For Marinaj, the excitement was short-lived. He had written the poem as a personal expression of his own dissatisfaction. He had never imagined the poem would actually be published. Now it was all over the country. It had happened so fast.
Approached at lunch the same day by an agent from Albania's intelligence service, he knew he was in trouble.
At home, he packed a small bag with some family pictures, four or five favorite books, and a blanket. That night he took his dog and began the six hour trek through the mountains to the Yugoslav border.
"Every time I was on a mountain, I could see the little town I was living in below. From the very top I could even spot where my house was," Marinaj said. "You just feel sad. You feel like you're betraying the country and you wonder what is going to happen to your relatives."
Marinaj made it safely across the border where he was detained by Yugoslav authorities.
He spent the next few months in a refugee camp in Belgrade, waiting to be admitted to some other country. After showing a copy of his poem to the American ambassador, he was given U.S. immigration papers almost immediately.
"He was an American politician, but he understood the power of poetry," Marinaj said. "All of us who left the country were bits of information saying that something was going wrong with the communist countries. It was something to point a finger at to say look, this guys not happy. It was actually something good, something rare for a real intellectual to leave the country."
Coming to UTD
It was through a literary-minded college professor that Marinaj had his first real taste of English literature, most of which was banned by the government. Of the contraband literature he read, the author he most admired was poet Frederick Turner.
After he had settled in the United States and it came to finding a place to study literature, it didn't take him long to figure out where he wanted to be. He enrolled at UTD where Turner has been Founder's Professor of Arts and Humanities since 1985.
Turner said he first met Marinaj when the latter was a precocious undergraduate. It wasn't until later, as the two began to collaborate professionally, that Turner learned Marinaj's story.
"To meet a genuine hero of poetry in the great classical mold was staggering to me," Turner said. "At first I didn't believe it because it was too good to true. He works incredibly hard and he's quite an extraordinary poet."
Turner said he considers Marinaj more his "poetic brother" than his student.
The two have worked closely in the years since their first encounter. Marinaj has translated some of Turner's work into Albanian. Most recently the two collaborated on a project collecting and translating Albanian oral poetry, most of which has never before been recorded.
Marinaj graduated with a master's degree in literary studies last December and has already begun work towards his doctorate. He travels frequently to Albania, which is now a parliamentary democracy and has been invited to join NATO.
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