Biography

Kongoli was born and grew up in Elbasan, Albania. He attended Qemal Stafa High School in Tirana, Albania. He studied mathematics at a university in China during the time when relations between China and Albania were strained. During the communist period in Albania, he worked as a mathematician and did not publish any important works.

Works

Fatos Kangoli's first major novel, The Loser (I humburi, Tirana 1992; English edition, 2007), takes place in March 1991. It follows Thesar Lumi, a former university student who looks back on his life in Hoxhaist Albania and considers how difficult it is to achieve goals under a system where the government has total control. The book was first published in 1992 in 10,000 copies, which was a large number, and it became popular with Albanian readers.

Other novels by Kangoli include Kufoma (1994; The Corpse), which continues the themes from his first book; Dragoi i fildishtë (1999; The Ivory Dragon), which focuses on the life of an Albanian student in China during the 1960s; and Lëkura e qenit (2003), a story about love and forgotten feelings.

Kangoli's books have been translated into French, German, Italian, Greek, Esperanto, Spanish, and Slovak.