Albanisch-kosovarische Grenzziehungen und -überwindungen: Science-Fiction aus Kosovo
Albanian-Kosovar Border Demarcation and Overcoming: Science Fiction from Kosovo

Summary/Abstract: The article presents two experimental and dystopian novels of the young Kosovar author Artrit Bytyçi. “The Arbiter” plays in 2049 and describes an android robot entering Kosovo from totalitarian Albania with the mission to kill liberal journalists in Prishtinopolis. “Arnautistan Noir” is a detective story in form of a comic describing Prizren as if it were still under Ottoman rule. By using the technique of alternative and counterfactual history, Bytyçi ironically plays with sacrosanct national narratives. The League of Prizren 1878 is still the time icon of the Albanian “rebirth” and national movement. The common thread of both novels is the recalibration of what it means to be Albanian since the 2000s including the demonopolization of Tirana as its political and cultural centre. Bytyçi’s own biography stresses the importance of the highly-educated diaspora in shaping modern and plural Albanian identities.

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