Vedat Kokona, writer, translator, lexicographer and lecturer, passed away. He was born in Karsiyaka (Turkey), in a family from Gjirokaster, in 1913. He attended the National Lyceum (French) of Korça, then higher studies in law at the Sorbonne University in Paris (1938). He worked as a translator in the “Naim Frashëri” publishing house and as a lecturer in the French language and literature department at the University of Tirana. His first publications are the book of poems “Dritë dhe hije” (“Light and shadow”)(1939), the collection of stories and the novel “Yje të këputur” (“Broken stars”) (1940). the travelogue “Nga Tirana në Stokolm” (“From Tirana to Stockholm”) (1935) and the poem “Shtatë prilli” (“Seventh of April”) (1943). In 1957, his play “Hijet e natës” (“Night shadows”) was published, the action of which takes place during the days of the war for the liberation of Tirana (November 1944), and the novel “Me valët e jetës” (“With the waves of life”) (two volumes: 1964, 1965). Vedat Kokona is the author of several French-Albanian and Albanian-French dictionaries (1966-1998 ), connoisseur of several foreign languages, translation master. He has translated great writers of world literature into Albanian: French authors, such as Corneille, Rasin. La Fontaine, Voltaire, Balzac; English writers, such as Shakespeare, Dickens and Russian writers: Tolstoy, Pushkin. Turgenev etc. He was decorated by the French state with the Orders Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters), Officier dans l’Ordre des Palmes Académique (Officer of the Order of the Academic Palm) and by the University of Tirana with the title of Doctor Honoris Causa . (In the photo: Vedat Kokona)
Text: Albanian encyclopedic dictionary – Vol. 2 , Academy of Sciences of Albania, “Kristalina-KH”, Tirana, 2008, page 1205.
Photo: © https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vedat_Kokona
Graphic processing: AHCF
