The Voice

How a teenage girl from the West moved to communist Albania and became the voice of Radio Tirana

In late February, I put all my belongings in storage and left Belgrade to travel the world for the rest of the year. That is one reason I launched this Substack: to write about the places I go, their stories and their history, along with current affairs and the inevitable commentary on the news. As many of you may know, my first destination was Albania. I stayed in the little city of Korca in the southwest, three hours from Tirana by bus. During my month there, I read a lot about the communist period and watched a lot of documentaries. I found much of what I watched and read affecting, but there was one YouTube video, an audio track, that haunted me, pursuing me even to my next destination – Istanbul – which is where I am now. It was Radio Tirana’s announcement of Enver Hoxha’s death in April of 1985.

Radio Tirana had been communist Albania’s public diplomacy service during the Cold War, and eventually broadcast in 20 languages around the world. But it was this single historic broadcast that drew me in. I was unnerved by The Voice. The woman who read the announcement of Comrade Enver Hoxha’s death had the most sonorous, beautiful, unsettling voice. It was clear that she was a native speaker of English, with an unplaceable accent. It was mesmerizing and dark, like a siren calling from a distant planet.