Michael: Alright Kevin, pop quiz. A professor of political theory from the last Stalinist state in Europe writes a book called 'Free.' What are you expecting? Kevin: Oh, I'm expecting 300 pages of footnotes, a deep dive into Kantian ethics, and a level of dryness that could mummify a cat. Probably zero explosions and a whole lot of academic jargon. Michael: You'd be half right about the Kant, but completely wrong about the rest. The book is Lea Ypi's Free: A Child and a Country at the End of History, and it's one of a kind—a gripping, personal, and surprisingly funny memoir. What's wild is that Ypi, who is a top political theorist at the London School of Economics, actually tried to write that dry academic book. But the stories of her family just took over. Kevin: No way. So the human story just burst through the theory? Michael: Exactly. And because of that, it ended up winning a ton of awards, like the Ondaatje Prize and the Ridenhour Book Prize for Truth Telling. It’s been widely acclaimed, though it has stirred some controversy, which we can get into. But it all starts in a place you would never expect. Kevin: Okay, so it's not a textbook. I'm in. Where do we start? Michael: We start with a little girl who is in love with a statue of Stalin.

Kevin: That is not where I expected this to go. In love with a statue of Stalin? What does that even mean? Michael: It’s the perfect image for her childhood. It's December 1990 in Albania, the communist regime is starting to crumble, and there are protests in the streets. Eleven-year-old Lea gets caught up in the chaos and runs to hide. Her safe space? The legs of a giant bronze statue of Joseph Stalin. She literally hugs his knees, feeling protected. Kevin: Wow. So to her, Stalin is this comforting, grandfatherly figure? Michael: Precisely. Because that’s what she’s been taught. Her moral education teacher, a woman named Nora, is a true believer. She tells the kids that Stalin was a "giant" whose "deeds were far more relevant than his physique." She even describes his "smiling eyes," explaining that his mustache covered his lips, so his eyes did the smiling for him. Kevin: That's next-level propaganda. The detail is incredible. 'Smiling eyes.' Michael: It gets better. Teacher Nora once told the class that her hand would always be strong because it had shaken the hand of their own leader, Enver Hoxha. She said, "I didn’t wash it for days... but even after I washed it, the strength was still there. It will never leave me." This is the world Lea believes in. It's a world of heroic leaders and absolute certainty. Kevin: Okay, but when she’s hugging this statue, you said it was during a protest. What happens? Michael: She hides until the noise dies down. When she finally lets go and looks up to see Stalin's smiling eyes, there are no eyes. No smile. No head. The statue has been decapitated by "hooligans," as the state calls them. And in that moment, her entire world starts to fracture. The symbol of safety is violently destroyed. Kevin: That’s a powerful image for the collapse of a belief system. So while she's learning about the glories of Uncle Enver and Stalin at school, what's happening at home? Are her parents just nodding along? Michael: This is the core of the book's first part. At home, there's a completely different reality. It's a world of silence, fear, and coded language. For example, the family talks a lot about relatives getting "university degrees." But Lea later discovers that "university" was code for a political prison. "B" was for Burrel, "S" was for Spaç. A degree in "international relations" meant a charge of treason. A degree in "literature" meant "agitation and propaganda." Kevin: Oh my god. So her whole family was living this elaborate lie, and she was completely oblivious? Michael: Completely. She’s a proud Pioneer of Enver, leading the school in the oath "Always ready!" to fight for the Party. Meanwhile, her parents are terrified. There's a heartbreaking story where she brings home a whole packet of biscuits from a factory—a rare treat. Instead of being happy, her parents are horrified. Her father's face goes pale. They're terrified that this small act of taking too much will bring the state's attention down on them. Kevin: That's the 'bifurcated reality' you mentioned. The public truth and the private truth are two different planets. How does a kid even process that? Michael: She doesn't, not at first. She just feels confusion and a growing sense that her parents aren't reliable. She writes, "the life I lived, inside the walls of the house and outside, was in fact not one life but two." The book is about the slow, painful collision of those two lives. And that collision really happens when the regime finally falls, and the word "freedom" is suddenly everywhere.

Kevin: This double life is fascinating, but the book is called Free. What happens when actual 'freedom' arrives? I'm guessing it wasn't a simple happy ending. Michael: Not even close. This is where Ypi's philosophical side really comes through. She has this incredible metaphor: "When freedom finally arrived, it was like a dish served frozen. We chewed little, swallowed fast, and remained hungry." Kevin: Wow. "A dish served frozen." That says it all. What did that look like in reality? Michael: It looked like chaos. First, there was the mass exodus. The borders open, and suddenly, as Ypi puts it, "everyone wants to leave." In March 1991, her best friend Elona just vanishes. The family is ashamed, her father calls her a "bad girl." Months later, they find out she impulsively followed a boy onto a cargo ship to Italy. Kevin: Just like that? A teenager just gets on a boat and leaves? Michael: Yes, because the port was unguarded and thousands of people were doing the same. But the dream of Europe quickly soured. By August, Italy’s stance had hardened. Ypi tells the story of the ship Vlora, packed with 20,000 people on a vessel meant for 3,000. They were met not with open arms, but with force. Elona's grandfather was on that ship, trying to find her. He said, "In March, they said we were all victims... In August, they looked at us as if we were some kind of menace." They were herded into a stadium and treated, in his words, "like dogs." Kevin: So the "freedom" to leave didn't mean the freedom to enter. The West, which had championed their liberation, was now building walls to keep them out. Michael: Exactly. And this is where the book gets really nuanced. It's not just a critique of communism; it's a deep critique of the promises of liberalism. The freedom that arrived wasn't just about voting. It was about the arrival of Western 'experts' who brought their own ideas. Ypi tells this amazing story about a World Bank advisor named Vincent who moves into her neighborhood. The locals nickname him 'the Crocodile.' Kevin: The Crocodile? Why? Michael: Because he wore a Lacoste shirt, and they didn't know the brand. They just saw a crocodile on his chest. To welcome him, the neighborhood throws this huge, traditional party. They're trying to show him their culture, their warmth. They keep piling food on his plate, asking him personal questions, trying to pull him into a traditional line dance. Kevin: I can see where this is going. He's a Dutch guy from the World Bank. He's probably not used to that level of... enthusiastic hospitality. Michael: He's horrified. He keeps politely refusing, but they physically grab his arms to make him dance. Finally, he just snaps. He shoves them away, bangs his fist on the table, and screams, "Look, I am free! Do you understand? I am free!" Kevin: That's an incredible story. It's a perfect illustration of the clash. The Albanians are trying to show him freedom through communal joy and connection, and his Western 'freedom' is the freedom to be left alone, to have individual autonomy. It's a total collision. Michael: A total collision. And it shows how the concept of freedom itself was up for grabs. For many Albanians, the new freedom also meant the freedom to get rich quick, which led to one of the country's greatest tragedies.

Michael: The pyramid schemes were a direct result of people desperate for a shortcut to the prosperity they thought freedom promised. But this is where the ghosts of the past really come back to haunt them. Kevin: What do you mean by ghosts of the past? Michael: I mean the way history, both personal and political, dictates the present. Take Ypi's father. Under communism, he was held back his whole life because of his 'biography'—his family's pre-communist history as intellectuals and landowners. He wasn't allowed to study the subjects he wanted; he was constantly under suspicion. Kevin: Right, the 'bad biography.' A stain he couldn't wash off. Michael: Exactly. But then, after the fall of communism, he's suddenly promoted. He becomes the general director of the port. His new job, under the guidance of the World Bank and experts like 'the Crocodile,' is to implement 'structural reforms.' Kevin: Which sounds nice and clinical. What does it actually mean? Michael: It means firing hundreds of workers. The very people, the 'proletariat,' that the old system claimed to protect. He finds himself in this impossible moral position, caught between the abstract demands of neoliberal economics and the real, desperate faces of the men he has to lay off. Kevin: So her dad is trapped. He was punished by the communists for his family's elite past, and now he's being used by the capitalists to destroy the lives of the working class. He can't win. It's a tragedy. Michael: It's a profound tragedy, and it shows how the transition wasn't a clean break. The new system created its own injustices. And when the pyramid schemes inevitably collapsed in 1997, taking the life savings of two-thirds of the population with them, the country didn't just protest. It exploded. Kevin: This is the civil war the book documents in diary entries, right? Michael: Yes. The state completely disintegrated. Everyone armed themselves. The sound of Kalashnikovs became as normal as birdsong. Ypi, now a teenager, documents this descent into anarchy with chilling clarity. She even loses her voice for a time, a physical manifestation of the trauma. Her mother and brother flee to Italy on a boat with armed smugglers. It's total chaos. Kevin: It's devastating. After all that hope in 1990, to end up in a civil war just seven years later. It feels like such a betrayal of the idea of freedom. Michael: That's the central point. The book forces you to ask what 'freedom' is worth if it leads to this. It’s no wonder that some critics, especially in Albania, have accused Ypi of being a 'communist apologist,' because she refuses to paint the liberal transition as a simple victory. She shows the deep flaws and human cost of both systems.

Kevin: So, after all this—the double life, the frozen freedom, the civil war—where does she land? What's the ultimate takeaway from this incredible journey? Michael: I think the book's power lies in showing that freedom isn't an endpoint. It's not a destination you arrive at. It's a constant, messy, and often painful struggle. The title itself, 'A Child and a Country at the End of History,' is a direct challenge to the idea that liberal democracy was the final answer. For Ypi, 1990 wasn't the end of history; it was the beginning of a new set of questions. Kevin: And she decides to tackle those questions head-on. I was struck by the final chapter, the debate with her father about studying philosophy. Michael: It’s the perfect ending. Her father, completely disillusioned, quotes Marx back at her: "Philosophers have only interpreted the world; the point is to change it." He sees philosophy as a useless, dead-end pursuit in a world that needs practical skills. Kevin: But she has a comeback. She reinterprets it. Michael: She does. She argues that you can't change the world without first understanding it, without knowing which direction to change it in. For her, philosophy becomes the tool to make sense of the chaos she's lived through. It's not an escape from reality; it's her way of engaging with it on her own terms. Her decision to study philosophy is her first truly free act, defining her own path out of the wreckage of two failed ideologies. Kevin: That's a really hopeful note to end on, in a way. It’s not about finding the right system, but about developing the right way of thinking. It really makes you think... we use the word 'freedom' all the time, but what does it actually mean in our own lives, beyond just a political slogan? Michael: It's a heavy question, but a vital one. The book doesn't give you an easy answer, but it makes you feel the weight of the question itself. We'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Join the conversation on our social channels and let us know what freedom means to you. Kevin: This is Aibrary, signing off.