Keen On

Lea Ypi’s new book about her Greek-Albanian grandmother is a philosophical meditation on dignity, a history of Ottoman collapse and Balkan nationalism, and a warning about our own indignant age of manufactured identities and resurgent tribalism.Back in January 2022, Lea Ypi came on the show to discuss Free, her brilliant account of growing up in communist Albania. Now Ypi, who teaches political philosophy at LSE, is back with her follow-up, Indignity, an equally compelling biography of Leman Ypi, her maternal grandmother. “A Life Reimagined” is its subtitle, but it’s not just her grandmother whose life Ypi is reimagining. The book is a retelling of the modern stories of Greece, Turkey and Albania as well as a sly backwards glance on the court politics of the late Ottomans. Indignity is a Balkan story, in the grand tradition of Rebecca West. And like West, Ypi shows us that Balkan history is never quite dead - instead, it’s prophecy for our own age of resurgent nationalism and manufactured identities. Things d