Xheni Kapllani

What was your favorite book as a child?

My favorite book as a child was probably a collection of fairy tales. One story in particular has remained with me. It is about a princess whose hair turned into golden threads. She used the golden threads to make a blanket. I can’t remember the title, but I have never forgotten the image of her hair being spun into golden thread. It was one of those fairytale images that seemed completely possible when I was a child, and yet it stayed with me.

What was the original reason or motivation why you started writing creatively?

I am not quite sure that I can easily pinpoint an original reason. There have certainly been different reasons as my writing has evolved, but something that has never changed is the need to reach the core of what I remember and what I have carried with me. I tend to begin with images rather than stories. An image will sometimes appear of something I have seen, or remembered, or something I cannot quite place, and it will feel so inherently mine that I need to understand it better. Writing becomes a way of moving closer to that image, of discovering what lies beneath it, why it has stayed with me, and how it has transformed me.

What was the most adventurous or thrilling thing you ever did/experienced?

I am not a particularly adventurous person, so I wouldn’t say that my most thrilling experience was something conventionally daring. For me, it was moving abroad and leaving behind a life that had sheltered me. There was a period of feeling estranged from myself as I tried to understand where I belonged and where I had belonged before. I had to learn to find myself between languages, places, and versions. Eventually, I began to understand that it is not about where but how I belong, and I learned to belong through languages.

Do you listen to music while reading or writing? Why/why not?

Not really. When I listen to music, I usually want to dance, sing, or move around, so it tends to take me out of the stillness I need for writing. When I write, I prefer small sounds around me: voices, footsteps, doors closing. I like that they don’t demand my attention, but they remain there. Something is comforting about that; they create a sense of homeness in my writing.