Book launch of Lea Ypis “Indignity. A Life Reimagined” at the Frankfurt Book Fair
Four years ago, Prof. Dr. Lea Ypi (London School of Economics) wrote a bestseller about her childhood in post-Stalinist Albania, “Free – Coming of Age at the End of History”. In her latest work “Indignity. A Life Reimagined”, Lea Ypi now embarks on another journey into her family’s past and explores the life of Leman Ypi, her own grandmother. This life of Leman Ypi is closely intertwined with the historical upheavals and political events of her time, which is why “Upright” also deals with the history of the Ottoman Empire, the emergence of the new nation states in the Balkans, Turkey, Greece and, above all, Albania, which experienced the proclamation of a monarchy, fascist occupation and communist rule in a short space of time after its declaration of independence in 1912. And in view of these trials and tribulations of history, Ypi’s book is also about how one can preserve one’s dignity in such a life full of extreme situations and how identity and belonging, freedom and responsibility can be conceived and shaped under such circumstances.
The panel discussion on October 15, 2025 with the author Lea Ypi, Dr. Jonela Hoxhaj (Honorary Consul of the Republic of Albania) and Prof. Dr. Rainer Forst (Goethe University / Normative Orders), which was organized by the “Normative Orders” research center together with “FrauenmitFormat”, the Honorary Consulate of the Republic of Albania in Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp-Verlag and the Johanna Quandt Young Academy and moderated by Rebecca C. Schmidt, was also dedicated to these topics.
The welcoming speeches at the event already showed how many different connections Lea Ypi’s new book can offer: While Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Sabine Andresen (Vice President of Goethe University) presented “Indignity” from an educational science perspective as a multi-layered generational dialogue, Rainer Forst emphasized the unity of Lea Ypi’s philosophical and literary work, before Astrid v.d. Malsburg (FrauenmitFormat) presented the book as a warning against the horrors of dictatorship and a plea for freedom and democracy.
The subsequent discussion of the book then focused on the different tasks and possibilities of literature and philosophy, growing up and dealing with one’s own history in Albania as well as the practical and philosophical problems of searching for truth in the archives. In response to moderator Rebecca C. Schmidt’s concluding question about how to go through life upright in times of polycrisis, Ypi made a plea for hope instead of optimism.