Albanian League of Writers and Artists

The Albanian League of Writers and Artists (ALWA) (Albanian: Lidhja e Shkrimtarëve dhe e Artistëve) is an organization of creators, located in Tirana, Albania, which includes writers, composers, and artists and critics of the literary and artistic values.

ALWA was crystallized as a union of two organizations: "The Writers League", founded on October 7, 1945, and "The Artists League" founded in 1949. The First Congress was held on 1957, resulting in these two organizations merging in a single institution: The Albanian League of Writers and Artists. Sejfulla Malëshova was appointed its leader and Fan S. Noli its honorary president. Among the most known creators were Lasgush Poradeci, Nonda Bulka, Skënder Luarasi, Dhimitër Shuteriqi, Sterjo Spasse, etc. At the beginning there were by 70 members.

Its statute describes its activities as:

ALWA is a non-government organization, it was created by a group of Albanian writers and artists to propagate literary and artistic creativity of Albanian authors, to evaluate and re-evaluate the best works of the Albanian literature, music, painting and sculpture, traditional and contemporary values, and to encourage the creativity of young talents. ALWA protects and stimulates the best tendencies of the developments of literature and art to serve to the society and Albanian nation, under the best models of literary and artistic values of the civilized nations.

The League of Writers and Artists has played a role in the development of Albanian literature and art, especially for the selection, publication and propaganda of the works with Albanian nationality content.

Among the membership of the League of Writers and Artists have been dissident-minded authors like Sejfulla Malëshova, the first leader of this organization, like the writer Kasem Trebeshina, who was imprisoned for his creativity, like Pjetër Arbnori (also called Albanian Mandela), who was re-convicted in prison for his literary anticommunist work, as the dissident Bilal Xhaferri who was expelled, exiled in communist gulags and forced to flee to the U.S., as Vilson Blloshmi who was shot and how many others who were persecuted in thousands ways. Some, like the poet Xhevahir Spahiu, Dritëro Agolli or Ismail Kadare, survived.

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