When Fact Meets Fiction. Conversation With Lea Ypi

Albanian author and political scientist Lea Ypi gained international recognition for Free: Coming of Age at the End of History, which moves seamlessly between personal narrative and political analysis.

Ypi has since written both novels and non-fiction, working at the intersection of philosophy, history and literary form. But where exactly are the boundaries? Is her fiction also a form of academic communication – or is it precisely in the tension between the two genres that she finds room to uncover the hidden, the unsaid, that which is lost when ideologies collapse and reality fails its own narratives?

In conversation with Frøy Gudbrandsen, political editor at VG, Ypi explores how literature can give us new insights into political systems, migration processes and historical turmoil – and why she needs both fiction and non-fiction to understand the world.

The conversation will be held in English.