Ireland’s most prestigious poetry festival is set to start with a bang – and a laugh – at the Percy French Hotel in Strokestown, Co. Roscommon, on the night of Friday 29 April and will run over the Bank Holiday weekend……..Other highlights of the festival include readings by Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, professor of English Literature at TCD, and Ndrek Gjini an Albanian poet living in Galway. Read more….

Poets from Albania and Belfast

By Kevin Higgins

NDREK GJINI began attending the University of Shkoder in his native Albania in 1984 when the country’s ageing ultra-Stalinist dictator, Enver Hoxha, was still organising lavish pageants in honour of himself. Ndrek is currently completing an MA in writing in the hopefully somewhat more liberal atmosphere of NUI Galway. Read more…

Cyphers 71 launched at Strokestown International Arts Festival

No. 71 was launched on May Day 2011 at Strokestown House.  A reading by Albanian poet Ndrek Gjini, Galway resident, marked the event. Read More…

The stammering poet

At Strokestown on the May Bank Holiday weekend, Eilean ni Chuilleanain at the launch of Cyphers introduced Albanian poet Ndrek Gjini. I have to be honest. My heart sank. I find it hard enough to understand Irish poets. I was hardly going to be enchanted by an Albanian poet.
Just goes to show how much I know. Ndrek was a breath of fresh air. His poetry is very simple, very easy to understand, very metaphor based and an absolute delight. Read more…

September Over The Edge Reading

Stephanie Brennan, Ndrek Gjini & Michael O’Loughlin for September Over The Edge: Open Reading PLUS the announcement of the winners of the 2012 Over The Edge New Writer of the Year The September ‘Over The Edge: Open Reading’ takes place in Galway City Library on Thursday, September 27th, 6.30-8.00pm. The Featured Readers are Michael O’Loughlin, Ndrek Gjini & Stephanie Brennan. There will as usual be an open-mic after the Featured Readers have finished. The evening will also see the announcement of the winners in this year’s Over The Edge New Writer of The Year competition, which received a record number of entries. Raed more…

……..Finally, and unexpectedly, I have been able to add a little polish to my song via a wonderful collection of poetry The Death of Night by an Albanian writer Ndrek Gjini, which was placed in my hands by the author himself. Ndrek is an ex-student of my own and indeed is one of those personalities from whom I have borrowed a thread for the ‘hero’ of this song. He has first-hand experience of that terrible conflict and in poems such as ‘The Balkan view’ and ‘A shadow of a frightened man’ he evokes the mood and sense of what transpired in those dreadful years. (Long life to you Ndrek, what poems!) Read more….

CLARE’S Albanian community have come together to celebrate their heritage as part of a photography exhibition, which is set to be launched in Ennis this weekend. The exhibition has been created in honour of 100 years of Albanian independence and it will be officially launched this Saturdayin the Clare Museum by Dr Jack McCann, chairman of the Irish Friends of Albania.

The exhibition was compiled with the assistance of the Clare Albanian community and Irish Friends of Albania and it was first showcased in Galway in 2012. According to Ndrek Gjini, Arts Office Assistant with Galway City Council, Clare is a fitting next stop for the exhibition due to the county’s sizeable Albanian population. “There are more than 300 Albanians living in Clare and more than that, Kosovans who are national Albanians too. Most of them made Ennis and Clare their home during the war in Kosovo in 1999. During that war, the Irish government decided to send a humanitarian team to help and support those Albanians who were living in some camps in Albania escaping from Milosevic’s regime of genocide. Most of them have got now Irish citizenship and they are very well settled in Ennis and other towns in Clare. They own shops, restaurants, they run different businesses –  they are very well integrated into Irish society,” he said. Read more…