IMMIGRATION NOVEL: “TAUT AS A THRILLER”

Ledia Xhoga

4:30 p.m. Tuesday, November 18, 2025

Conversation / Q&A

University at Albany

Multi-Purpose Room, Campus Center West

1400 Washington Avenue Albany NY 12222 -  See map.

Ledia Xhoga (pronounced Joga) is a fiction writer and playwright originally from Tirana, Albania. Her new novel, Misinterpretation (2024), based primarily in little-known ethnic enclaves in New York City, tells the story of an Albanian translator who becomes entangled in the lives of a Kosovar torture survivor and a Kurdish poet — at the expense of her marriage and her mental health. (Read an excerpt)

​

In July, Misinterpretation became one of only 13 novels nominated for the 2025 Booker Prize, one of the most prestigious awards in all of literature.

"Misinterpretation subtly blurs the distinction between help and harm. We found it propulsive, unsettling, and strangely human," said The Booker Prize 2025 judges.

The novel received the New York City Book Award and was a finalist for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize. 

​​

​Jennifer Croft, who received the International Booker Prize for her translation of Olga Tokarczuk’s Flights, called Misinterpretation “absolutely gorgeous. Taut as a thriller, lovely as a watercolor.” ​

​​

Xhoga has been published in Intrepid Times, Hobart, KGB magazine, and other journals. 

​​​​

Cosponsored by Living in Languages, a collaboration of the Departments of English, and Languages, Literatures and Cultures.

more about the book:

“Trenchant. . . . An essential look at the diarist’s legacy.” — Publishers Weekly
 

In present-day New York City, an Albanian interpreter reluctantly agrees to work with Alfred, a Kosovar torture survivor, during his therapy sessions. Despite her husband’s cautions, she soon becomes entangled in her clients’ struggles: Alfred’s nightmares stir up her own buried memories, and an impulsive attempt to help a Kurdish poet leads to a risky encounter and a reckless plan.

 As ill-fated decisions stack up, jeopardizing the nameless narrator’s marriage and mental health, she takes a spontaneous trip to reunite with her mother in Albania, where her life in the United States is put into stark relief. When she returns to face the consequences of her actions, she must question what is real and what is not. Ruminative and propulsive, Ledia Xhoga’s debut novel Misinterpretation interrogates the darker legacies of family and country, and the boundary between compassion and self-preservation. Read more