What is it like growing up in a system that is breaking down? Lea Ypi, born in Albania in 1979, is professor of political theory at London School of Economics and in 2021 her widely acclaimed memoar Free - Coming of Age at the End of History (2021) was published (in Swedish Fri - En uppväxt vid historiens slut). In it she details, from a child’s point of view, her experience growing up in Albania during the rule of Enver Hoxha’s communist party and living through the fall of its rule in the early 1990’s. What is it like to see the illusions one has grown up with come crashing down? And to experience how the new promises of economic freedom, market capitalism and democracy turned into chaos?
Free - Coming of age at the end of history has been nominated to several prizes, and named best book of the year by The Sunday Times, Financial Times, TLS, New Statesman and Spectator.
This conversation between Lea Ypi and Gustaf Arrhenius, Director of the Institute for Futures Studies and professor of Practical Philosophy took place at IFFS on December 7 2022.