Martin Camaj was an Albanian

Albanians

Albanians are a nation and ethnic group native to Albania and neighbouring countries. They speak the Albanian language. More than half of all Albanians live in Albania and Kosovo...

 linguist, writer and folklorist. He is regarded as one of the major authors of modern Albanian prose. His novel Rrathë is considered to be the first psychological novel

Psychological novel

A psychological novel, also called psychological realism, is a work of prose fiction which places more than the usual amount of emphasis on interior characterization, and on the motives, circumstances, and internal action which springs from, and develops, external action...

 in Albanian.

Life

Martin Camaj was born in Temal

Temal

Temal is a municipality in the Shkodër District, Shkodër County, northwestern Albania.-Notable people:Martin Camaj, linguist and professor of Albanology at the University of Munich....

, Shkodër District

Shkodër District

The District of Shkodër is one of the thirty-six districts of Albania, part of Shkodër County. It has a population of 185,646 , and an area of 1,973 km². It is in the north of the country, and its capital is Shkodër...

, Shkodër County

Shkodër County

Shkodër County is one of the 12 counties of Albania. It consists of the districts Malësi e Madhe, Pukë and Shkodër. The capital of the county of Shkodër is the city of Shkodër....

, northwestern Albania

Albania

Albania , officially known as the Republic of Albania , is a country in Southeastern Europe, in the Balkans region. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea...

 on July 21, 1925. He first studied in the Jesuit Saverian College of Shkodër

Shkodër

Shkodër , is a city located on Lake of Shkoder in northwestern Albania in the District of Shkodër, of which it is the capital. It is one of the oldest and most historic towns in Albania, as well as an important cultural and economic centre. Shkodër's estimated population is 90,000; if the...

 and afterwards in the University of Belgrade

University of Belgrade

The University of Belgrade is the oldest and largest university of Serbia.Founded in 1808 as the Belgrade Higher School in revolutionary Serbia, by 1838 it merged with the Kragujevac-based departments into a single university...

. Later Camaj worked as professor of Albanian

Albanian language

Albanian is an Indo-European language spoken by approximately 7.6 million people, primarily in Albania and Kosovo but also in other areas of the Balkans in which there is an Albanian population, including western Macedonia, southern Montenegro, southern Serbia and northwestern Greece...

 at the Sapienza University of Rome, where he did postgraduate research and finished studies on linguistics in 1960. In 1957 he became the editor-in-chief of the Albanological journal Shejzat published in Rome. In 1961 he settled in Munich and first worked as a lector at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, while in 1964 he became a Privatdozent

Privatdozent

Privatdozent or Private lecturer is a title conferred in some European university systems, especially in German-speaking countries, for someone who pursues an academic career and holds all formal qualifications to become a tenured university professor...

. In 1970 he earned his professorship and until 1990 he was a professor of Albanology

Albanology

Albanology is the science that studies Albanian language and culture.The father of Albanology is often considered to be the Austrian Norbert Jokl, while the Croat Milan Šufflay and the Hungarian Franz Nopcsa von Felső-Szilvás are also among its famous founders.Among modern important Albanologists...

 at the same university. A resident of Lenggries

Lenggries

Lenggries is a municipality in Bavaria, Germany. Lenggries is the center of the Isarwinkel, the region along the Isar between Bad Tölz and Wallgau...

, Bavaria

Bavaria

Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...

 since the 1970s Camaj died there on March 12, 1992.

Works

Camaj's works revolve around themes like the loss and search for tradition and the loneliness brought by future changes. His first verse collections Nji fyell ndër male (A flute in mountains) and Kanga e Vërrinit (Song of the lowland pastures) were published in Pristina in 1953 and 1954 respectively. His first major prose work was Djella, published in Rome in 1958. His next novel Rrathë (Circles) was published in Munich in 1978. Rrathë, which is Camaj's largest work, took him fifteen years to complete and is regarded as the first psychological novel written in Albanian. The novel is divided in the three cycles of water, fire and blood, which symbolize recurrent metaphysical and social themes. In 1981 a collection titled Shkundullima (Quaking) that included five short stories and one play of Camaj was published. His last novel Karpa, which was published in 1987 in Rome, is a dystopia

Dystopia

A dystopia is the idea of a society in a repressive and controlled state, often under the guise of being utopian, as characterized in books like Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four...

n work set in 2238.

Sources