The electoral campaign "sabotaged"/ "The Gambler" on the bookshelves of the capital's bookstores

2025-06-29 11:17:00, Kulturë CNA

The electoral campaign "sabotaged"/ "The Gambler" on the

Xhovan Shyti

Released weeks ago, author Xhovan Shyti's new book, titled "The Gambler," has just taken its place on the shelves of some of the capital's bookstores.

As Mr. Shyti explains , the time delay between printing and distribution at points of sale was due to the electoral campaign for the parliamentary elections of May 11, 2025.

"I postponed the distribution of my seventh book, "The Gambler of Fortune," after I judged that the noisy engines of the 2025 electoral campaign would eclipse the attention of the few book lovers. I decided to wait for the moment when the deafening noise of the electoral engines would subside. I believe that now is the moment, although Albanian political fans, who fortunately no longer bother with the book, will continue to postpone the months with the "wet and dry" process of the results and the fairness of the elections," specifies author Shyti.

Asked about the subject matter of the book "The Gambler," after articulating the phrase "I have always had and continue to have trouble telling the content, as I consider it an insult to book lovers, a kind of artificial seduction to impose the purchase of the work at any cost," author Shyti, a distinguished veteran of post-communist journalism, sums it up succinctly:

"The content of "The Gambler" deals with the end of the individual, passive societies and populations, who live waiting and hoping for fate, not realizing that the very expectation of the arrival of fate, at the very least, inspires the loss of years of life that flow in their own bed without impact.

The "Gambler", who is the central character of the book, is lucky enough to triumph one day, the long-awaited fortune knocks on his door, but what happens to him...?

Apart from being a historical memory of the past years in post-communism, the book's story as a whole is treated on a psycho-philosophical level. Likewise, the central character, whose waiting fate is parallel to that of Albanians for whom waiting for the arrival of fate, not reacting to what fraudulent politics has served them, has cost them heavy losses. Not only financially, from the fraudulent pyramids of '96-'97, but, why not, also of the freedom and life missing in democracy.

"We must not forget that with passivity, with the hope of the arrival of fate, which will come to us one day, for three decades we have contributed and are contributing to democracy, not to the democracy promised in the early '90s," assesses the author, journalist Shyti./ CNA