Ag Apolloni


Ag Apolloni is an Albanian writer, poet, playwright, scholar, and essay writer. He is a professor at the University of Prishtina, Kosovo. His literary works are widely acclaimed for their dramatic dimension, philosophical treatment, and critical attitude towards history, politics, and society.

Early life

Ag Apolloni was born on 13 June 1982 in Kaçanik, Kosovo. He attended both elementary school and gymnasium in his hometown, finishing in 2001. In 2005, he successfully concluded his studies in Dramaturgy and Literature at the University of Prishtina, where in 2008, he received the title of Master of Philological Sciences, while in 2012 he earned the title of Doctor of Philological Sciences.
In 2020 he was granted citizenship of Albania.

Career

Teaching

Since 2008, Ag Apolloni has been teaching at the University of Prishtina. In 2024, he was invited as a Visiting Professor at Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic, where he gave a series of lectures. In 2025, he was invited as a Visiting Scholar at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Journalism

Apolloni has worked as a journalist, editor, and editor-in-chief for several daily newspapers as well as literary and cultural journals based in Pristina. In 2010, he reactivated Jeta e Re, the oldest literary journal in Kosovo, originally founded in 1949 and discontinued in 2006. He directed the magazine for three years.
In 2013, Apolloni founded the cultural journal Symbol, through which he conducted interviews with prominent intellectuals, writers, and artists. His guests included Linda Hutcheon, Jonathan Culler, Rita Dove, Gottfried Helnwein, Andreas Huyssen, Mieke Bal, DM Thomas, Javier Cercas, Ann Jefferson, Peter Singer, Stephen Greenblatt, Stanley Fish, David Damrosch, and John Kerrigan. He directed the journal for ten years and also collaborated with numerous newspapers and literary journals.

Publishing

In 2012, he co-founded the publishing house OM, which he directed until early 2019, when he founded Bard Books, which he led until 2024. Through these two publishing houses, he introduced important Albanian, Balkan, and international authors to Albanian readers. He also created a special series dedicated to the publication and promotion of women authors, and curated the publication of the complete works of the Greek author Nikos Kazantzakis and the Serbian author Danilo Kiš, and organized dozens of book launches in Kosovo, Albania, and North Macedonia to present the authors published by these two publishing houses.

Writing career

Ag Apolloni began writing regularly in 2003, when he started a poetic diary titled Zomb and wrote the monodrama The Story of an Eyes Collector. The play was first published in literary journals in Kosovo in 2006 and 2009, then included in a 2010 volume alongside three of his other plays, and later featured in the Austrian literary magazine Lichtungen.
Apolloni's literary works include plays, poetry, prose, and academic studies. His works have been translated into several languages, including English, French, Dutch, German, Czech, Romanian, Slovenian, Macedonian, Montenegrin, Greek, Lithuanian, etc. He has received multiple national and international awards for both his literary and scholarly contributions.

Literary works

Novels

Apolloni’s first novel, The Howl of the Wolf, explores a wide range of themes, including the relationship between the living and the dead. The novel blends elements of despair and fury with moments of humor, and incorporates references to music, painting, film, and theatre. The narrative unfolds across multiple countries, including Kosovo, Macedonia, Albania, Montenegro, Italy and Austria, where the novel was completed. It has been translated into Macedonian, Czech and Montenegrin.
His second novel, Zazen, is based on the real-life experience of a young Kosovar—reportedly a friend of the author—who returns home after completing a philosophy degree abroad and faces a series of personal and societal rejections. The protagonist, Zen Zabel, is portrayed as a figure caught between idealism and social alienation. The novel addresses social, philosophical, political, national, and religious issues, and was written in Skopje.
In 2020, Apolloni published his third novel, Glimmer of Hope, Glimmer of Flame, a documentary-style narrative centered on two women from Gjakova, Kosovo, affected by the aftermath of the 1999 war. One woman continues to wait for her missing husband and four sons, while the other committed self-immolation after receiving the remains of her sons. The novel examines the consequences of war and the pain of peace, drawing on classical tragic elements to explore themes of motherhood, loss, and memory. In 2022, it was translated into Dutch. Dutch literary theorist Mieke Bal described the novel as "a literary masterpiece worth being turned into a film." It was presented in The Hague on the fifteenth anniversary of Kosovo’s independence.
Red Riding Hood: Fairytale for Grown Ups is a semi-documentary novel that reimagines the tale of Red Riding Hood and the Wolf. It combines prose, poetry, and drama, and employs elements from cartoons, theatre, film, and music, as well as documentary material. The book is primarily set in Kosovo, with additional scenes in other European countries. It was written in Debrecen, Hungary—where one chapter is set—and was published simultaneously in Albania and Kosovo.
Apolloni’s fifth novel, If I Were a Devil is an autofiction centered on a love story and the author’s emotional connection to Vienna, where the author wrote his first novel and started to write the fifth. The novel draws intertextual references to Plautus’ Menaechmi, Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, Goethe’s Faust, and blues music as well. It was written between 2023-2024 in Vienna and Bucharest.

Plays

Apolloni's dramatic work The Story of an Eyes Collector, Halloween, Judith, Mat is a collection of three tragedies that draw inspiration from ancient Greek drama and classical theatre. He began writing the plays at the age of 21, referring to the work as "an elegy for the last decade of the last century, namely a reminder of the crimes that shocked the world."
Hamlet according to Horatio is a psychoanalytic tragedy that incorporates Sigmund Freud’s theories to propose an alternative narrative to Shakespeare’s Hamlet. The play explores themes such as incest and betrayal and is structured as a pastiche or dramatic hypertext based on Shakespeare’s original work and Freud’s interpretation of Hamlet as an incomplete Oedipus figure. Thematically, the play echoes elements from Oresteia, Oedipus Rex, and Hamlet. The drama was called My Hamlet as a working title, and was the winner of the annual "Katarina Josipi" Drama Award.
Scanderbeg: Marlowe's Manuscript is a postmodern drama based on the fictional discovery of a lost Elizabethan play, The True History of George Scanderbeg, attributed to Christopher Marlowe. The play is written according to the postmodern principle of the manuscript-as-text, blending historical speculation with literary reconstruction.
The Revenge of Homer, published in 2025, was written in 2011 at the request of the National Theatre of Kosovo, as an adaptation of Ismail Kadare’s novel The File on H. It was staged that same year, and again the following year, at the National Theatre of Kosovo and the National Theatre of Albania. More than a conventional dramatization, the play functions as a burlesque of a serious subject — a dramatic hypertext with intertextual links to Balkan folklore, Homer, and Bram Stoker.

Poetry

In 2009, Apolloni published Zomb, a collection described as a diary of 100 of his poems. The book opens with a dedication titled "My Friend's Wife," which includes two epigraphs from English poet John Milton. It is divided into six sections: Overture, Edenic Waltz, Dionysian Sonata, Siren Symphony, Requiem Eros, and Coda. Zomb explores erotic themes and draws on a wide range of influences, including medieval madrigals, Western musical traditions, world cinema, literature from antiquity to the contemporary period, and various religious systems such as Buddhism, Totemism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
The Sandals of Seneca is a poetry collection written following the author’s travels to historical and cultural sites in Greece, Italy, France, Austria, and Germany. The opening poem reflects on the death of the Roman philosopher Seneca, drawing parallels between ancient political corruption and contemporary politics in Kosovo.
The Rhetoric of Silence is a chapbook composed of eighteen poems centered on the theme of love.
Notes from the Cave is a collection of poems addressing themes such as politics, ethics, the meaning of life, and love. The opening poem, "The Heresy of Heraclites," connects the despair of the ancient Greek philosopher with the existential concerns of a modern Kosovar intellectual.

Non-fiction

My Middle Ages is a collection of autobiographical essays by Apolloni, described as a narrative-essayist autobiography. The book comprises ten essays, each titled in Latin: Obscura, Vulgus, Doctrina, Pelegrin, Allegoria, Persona, Schisma, Templarius, Inquisitio, and Memento. The essays reflect on the author's personal experiences while also addressing contemporary social and cultural issues in Kosovo.

Critical books

In addition to his fiction, Apolloni has written several works of literary criticism and theory. He has published two monographs: Postmodern Parable, based on his master’s thesis, is a study of Rexhep Qosja, considered the first postmodern Albanian writer; and The Paradigm of Proteus, based on his doctoral dissertation, is a study of Ismail Kadare’s The General of the Dead Army, the most widely translated Albanian novel.
In 2016, he published Konica’s Suitcase, a collection of essays addressing various aspects of Albanian literature, including language, literary value, major authors, and key works. In 2019, he released Commentum, a multi-volume critical project in which he discusses the works of Aristotle, Friedrich Nietzsche, Bertolt Brecht, Nikos Kazantzakis, Miguel de Unamuno, Jorge Luis Borges, Ernesto Sabato, Cesare Pavese, Umberto Eco, and others.
In 2025, Apolloni published The Prague Preachings, a book that includes the lectures he delivered at Charles University, where he discussed World Literature and writers such as Goethe, Paul Valéry, Joseph Conrad, Franz Kafka, and others.

Novels

  • The Howl of the Wolf,
  • Zazen
  • Glimmer of hope, glimmer of flame,
  • Red Riding Hood: Fairytale for Grown Ups,
  • If I Were a Devil,

Poetry

  • Zomb
  • The Sandals of Seneca,
  • The Rhetoric of Silence,
  • Notes from the Cave,

Plays

  • The Story of An Eyes Collector, Halloween, Judith, Mat,
  • Hamlet according to Horatio,
  • Skanderbeg: Manuscript of Marlowe,
  • The Revenge of Homer,

Studies, essays

  • The Postmodern Parable,
  • The Paradigm of Proteus,
  • Konitza's Suitcase,
  • Commentum
  • Prague Preachings: Ten Lectures on World Literature,

Autobiography

  • My Middle Age,