Elvira Dones (born July 24, 1960) is an

Albania Albania ( ; or ), officially the Republic of Albania (), is a country in Southeast Europe. It is located in the Balkans, on the Adriatic Sea, Adriatic and Ionian Seas within the Mediterranean Sea, and shares land borders with Montenegro to ...

n novelist,

screenwriter A screenwriter (also called scriptwriter, scribe, or scenarist) is a person who practices the craft of writing for visual mass media, known as screenwriting. These can include short films, feature-length films, television programs, television ...

, and documentary film producer.

Biography

Born in the coastal city of

Durrës Durrës ( , ; sq-definite, Durrësi) is the List of cities and towns in Albania#List, second most populous city of the Albania, Republic of Albania and county seat, seat of Durrës County and Durrës Municipality. It is one of Albania's oldest ...

Dones graduated from the State University of Tirana. In 1988 she was employed by Albanian State Television and in this capacity traveled to Switzerland, where she defected. Tried for treason in Albania (''in absentia''), she was sentenced to prison and denied access to her young son until after the collapse of

communism Communism () is a political sociology, sociopolitical, political philosophy, philosophical, and economic ideology, economic ideology within the history of socialism, socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a ...

in Albania in 1992. From 1988 until 2004, Dones lived in Switzerland where she worked as a writer and a television journalist, while also writing, directing, and producing several documentaries. Since 2004, she has lived in the United States. The bulk of her writing is in either Italian or Albanian, but several of her documentary films have been subtitled in English. Several of these films have either won or been nominated for various awards. Her most recent documentary, Sworn Virgin, tells the story of women in northern

who swear perpetual chastity in their teenage years and become men in their society —not women acting like men or women who have gender reassignment, but simply women who are now men. This film was named the best documentary at the

Baltimore Baltimore is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland. With a population of 585,708 at the 2020 census and estimated at 568,271 in 2024, it is the 30th-most populous U.S. city. The Baltimore metropolitan area is the 20th-large ...

Women's Film Festival in 2007.

Selected bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * Dones, Elvira (2023) ''La breve vita di Lukas Santana'', Milano, La nave di Teseo

Filmography

* ''Brunilda'' (2003) * ''I ngujuar (Nailed)'' (2004) * '' Sworn Virgin'' (2015)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Dones, Elvira 1960 births Living people Albanian women novelists Albanian screenwriters Albanian atheists Women screenwriters 20th-century Albanian novelists People from Durrës 20th-century Albanian writers 20th-century Albanian women writers 21st-century Albanian women writers 21st-century Albanian writers 21st-century screenwriters