“Culture, Mysticism, Religion” was the theme of an event held Friday by the National Center for Books and Reading, marking the International Day of Poetry.
Invited to speak on the topic were French poet Laure Cambau and Albanian poet Mimoza Ahmeti.
The poets read excerpts from Cambau’s poetry collection The White Without White, a book translated into Albanian and dedicated to the Albanian-French painter Omer Kaleshi.
“It was Omer himself who inspired this. In his paintings, there is a kind of half-white. I met Omer in 2010 at an art exhibition in Paris. He invited me to visit his studio. I saw that everything he had made himself. Every time I left his studio, I would write a poem,” said Laure Cambau.
Ahmeti, while praising Cambau’s collection, said that through it she came to know the world of the painter of Albanian-Macedonian origin.
“Through a Frenchwoman, I was able to discover the world of Omer Kaleshi and the Albanian-Macedonian heritage. I came to understand, on another level, that the life and worldview of this international painter was not only a matter of art, but something far more subtle—like the belief of Sufism,” said Mimoza Ahmeti.
Laure Cambau lives in Paris. A poet and pianist, she is also the author of children’s stories and song lyrics.
