Misinterpretation
SynopsisPlot
In present-day New York City, an Albanian interpreter reluctantly agrees to work with Alfred, a Kosovar torture survivor, during his therapy sessions. Despite her husband’s cautions, she soon becomes entangled in her clients’ struggles: Alfred’s nightmares stir up her own buried memories, and an impulsive attempt to help a Kurdish poet leads to a risky encounter and a reckless plan. As ill-fated decisions stack up, jeopardizing the nameless narrator’s marriage and mental health, she takes a spontaneous trip to reunite with her mother in Albania, where her life in the United States is put into stark relief. When she returns to face the consequences of her actions, she must question what is real and what is not. Ruminative and propulsive, Ledia Xhoga’s debut novel, Misinterpretation, interrogates the darker legacies of family and country, and the boundary between compassion and self-preservation.
Story
About this book
Ledia Xhoga's debut novel follows an unnamed Albanian woman living in New York City who works as an interpreter. She takes on a difficult assignment: sitting in on therapy sessions for Alfred, a Kosovar survivor of torture. Her husband warns her against getting too close, but Alfred's accounts begin to surface memories she has kept buried. At the same time, she tries to assist a Kurdish poet, a decision that pulls her toward danger and an ill-considered plan.
As one poor choice follows another, the narrator's marriage and stability start to unravel. She flies to Albania to see her mother, and the distance from New York sharpens her view of the life she has built abroad. Returning to the United States means facing what her choices have set in motion, and the line between what she has experienced and what she may have imagined grows harder to trace.
The novel sits at the intersection of displacement, family inheritance, and the cost of absorbing other people's pain. Its setting moves between two countries and two versions of the narrator's identity. The book was longlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize.
