Free

Book cover of Free: Coming of Age at the End of History

Book description

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

WINNER OF THE ONDAATJE PRIZE

'The best book I read last year by a mile. . . so beautifully written that anyone would be hooked' Laura Hackett, Sunday Times, Best Summer Books

'Wonderfully funny and poignant. . . a tale of family secrets and political awakening…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Free as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Alec Ryrie

Author

Lea Ypi is a political philosopher and she has, in effect, written a sly and subtle piece of political philosophy, but you only realise that when you close the book at the end.

It’s a memoir of her early life in Albania: under the ersatz Stalinism of Enver Hoxha’s regime as a small child; the sudden realisations when the regime fell that she had been surrounded by lies, not least the lies of her dissident family who could not take the risk of their child learning the truth about them; and the sickening stories of how ‘free’ Albania in the…

From Alec's 3 favorite reads in 2023.