No sex please, I’m Albanian: Sworn Virgin by Elvira Dones

Dramatic though the transition from Albania to America has been, Mark faces an even greater change. For 14 years, he has been living as a man – but until the age of 20, he was a girl named Hana.

By Jane Shilling

(Photo By Trees decorated with hearts in the Albanian capital Tirana on Valentine's Day 2014. Photo: Getty)

Sworn Virgin
Elvira Dones; translated by Clarissa Botsford
And Other Stories, 256pp, £10

On a flight from Albania to Washington in October 2001, two passengers strike up a conversation. One is Patrick O’Connor, an American journalist. The other is Mark Doda, a shepherd from Rrnajë, a village deep in the mountains of Albania, who is leaving his country for the first time in his 34 years. Unusually for a village shepherd, Mark speaks some English and tells his travelling companion that he writes poetry. As they part at the airport, Patrick, intrigued, hands over his card. “Call me whenever you want,” he says. And then, turning for a last farewell: “Use that phone number, really! I’m pretty sure you’ll need it.”