Today we talk about God Descends on Jasmine, a book by Shqiponja Axhami Trota published with our publishing house Europe Books.
Europe Books had the pleasure of interviewing the author Shqiponja Axhami Trota to get to know her better and what she wants to communicate to the readers with her book God Descends on Jasmine. She has also told us how the role of nature can help people find themselves and make them feel right in their world, today in 2021.
Below you can find our interview. Take a seat and enjoy your reading!!!
- What do you want to communicate to readers with this work?
To be honest my poetry is clothed with metaphor and at first reading it seems a bit complex. But I think this is the essence of what I want to say and to communicate to readers “The Beauty, harmony and balance between us sail in a complexity of circumstances, but it is important to know how to run after them and master them. This is the essence of life “striving for the best”. If everything were ready for us, we would not feel motivated and life would seem boring. I have tried to say this and from the title “God descends on jasmine”, which means that God “is among us” or is happy, if we try to do the best for ourselves and others. To do the best starting with the simple things; caring for a tree in the garden, a phone call to grandparents, a smile to a homeless person (if we do not have more for him), etc. This applies not only to the individual but also to nations, governments. If we get up in the morning and do our best by reflecting positivity and love, the world would be covered with flowers and no with tears.
- What particularly significant experiences in your life find expression in your book?
I was born and raised in a small and poor country, in Albania I have experienced two systems, the fever of a savage communist dictatorship and the reflections of a fragile democracy. Unfortunately I had to experience different scenes and moments from an early age, as a child with a “bad biography”. Apart from these, I have experienced the death of my parents since I was little, etc, but I have never and at no point in my life given up. On the contrary, I have tried to catch the “movement” and hope that tomorrow will be good. This is the essence of a philosophy that has kept me alive. Therefore, it is not a coincidence that in my poems I talk about dictatorships, wars, deaths, pains, etc. You ask me what is the experience of your life, I would answer you: A terrible storm in the middle of which I tried with all my might to find directions and light.
- Is there a particular moment in your life that led you to the writing of your work?
I cannot say that it is just a moment, there can be many moments that create the right resonance between what is experienced and what is reflected in art.
- How nature can help people find themselves and make them feel right in their world, today in 2021?
I do not know but I am convinced that it is an extraordinary harmony of the movements of nature with the timbre of what we call happiness. There are hundreds of living things and voices on the move from which you will learn how important it is to understand “living on the go”, to capture the moment, his voice, his timbre and to realize that every second of your life is very important, so have to live it to the fullest. Our life can change even from a simple action, for example if we close the computer for an hour and walk in the park. The most harmonious and magical plan where we can place ourselves is nature, because it serves us without any conditions. Nature loves us, if we love it. If we manage to understand this we will be fairer and we will take more care of everything around us.
- Are you planning to write more books?
The writing process is not an industrial process for which we can make a plan. The process of creation I think floats in a state between the human and the divine, in which the author must absorb and reflect the best for the benefit of aesthetic function. So I do not make plans, I just pray that in this state I can reflect and do the best I can. Anyway, I can say that this year I have in the process of publishing two books in Albanian: a novel “The End of Uskana” and a volume of poetry “Songs for my generation”.
Europe Books thanks the author Shqiponja Axhami Trota once again for taking the time and answering our questions. We are really pleased to have walked alongside her on the editorial path that led to the publication of her book God Descends on Jasmine. We wish her the best of luck for this novel and for her future works.
To you, my dear reader, I wish you to cherish your mind and your body with positivity and love in order to live a better life everyday and, I quote the author, where “the world would be covered with flowers and no with tears”.
So, my dear reader, I have nothing left but to wish you to enjoy this very pleasant reading!
Your Editor!