This play was buried in a drawer for six years, until I met Cheryl Antao-Xavier, the publisher of In Our Words Inc., who gave me the inspiration to go ahead with its translation from Albanian into English. Often lost in the translation, I thought I would not make it. I want to thank her from my heart for making my dream come true—the publishing of my first book in English. I am so excited and delighted at this achievement.
My writing challenge is an ongoing one, a fight for every single word, idiom and expression. I accept this challenge of writing in another language, the English language, which is not my mother tongue. Educated in my native Albanian language, I am now an English writer. This is a proud achievement for me. It has become my life’s purpose.
I want to thank www.zoetrope.com, the virtual studio of Francis Ford Coppola, this wonderful forum, where I published my first short stories in English, an exercise that gave me much encouragement in my creative writing. These short stories, such as “One dollar”, “The trader”, “Three widows”, “Mom’s silhouette”, “Bald woman”, etc., were my first literary work and are my serious attempts to write in English. The reviews I received from other writers all around the world gave me the self-confidence to keep on translating my work into English from the Albanian language. I knew then that I must keep on writing because I am good at it. Thanks to the Coppola family for this wonderful forum that has helped and inspired play and screen writers, poets and short story writers. Because of the help of Coppola’s Zoetrope, I defeated my own fear and received the courage to go forward. My name “Perparim” means “progress” in Albanian. I am making progress in my creative writing, because of the doors opened at Zoetrope.
I want to thank Mary Ellen Koroscil and her company Specialty Services Inc, for promoting my play on October 14th 2008, before the publication of the book and all the writers and artists who came and heard the introduction of the play.
It was the end of the year 2000, when my family and I flew to Canada, our new country, where we have now lived for more than eight years. I accepted that this was a different world, a different society and I was in very different circumstances. I had to make the best in transition, tried to make a living by working in pizza restaurants for over 80 hours a week, with my mind and my heart fixed on a career in creative writing. Making pizza and Italian pasta dishes became my profession. Now I own my own pizza restaurant, The Corporation of Albany Pizza, which is located at 222 Lansdowne Avenue in Toronto, thanks to the help of my family and the Toronto Business Development Centre.
My creative writing had been pushed to a back burner and risked becoming just a hobby. But not any more, now that I am independent without a boss to tell me, “What the hell are you doing in the workplace? You cannot write here, my friend!” Now, yes, I can write on the job. My creative writing is not a hobby anymore, but is the reason why I LIVE. When the business slows down and there are no customers around, I sit in front of my laptop and write. This is my destiny, this is the real me, this is who I am going to be.
