Albanian-born writer Ledia Xhoga has recently gained international attention with her debut novel “Misinterpretation,” earning a spot on the Booker Prize 2025 longlist. The novel unfolds with an unnamed interpreter caught between choices and emotional worlds.
In a central thread of the book, the narrator finds herself translating for Alfred, a Kosovar man who survived torture in the war, slowly becoming entangled in a complex web of ethical boundaries and personal sacrifices. As their relationship deepens, she struggles to maintain her professional distance while confronting the emotional weight of his trauma. Meanwhile, the line between objective truth and Alfred’s version of events begins to blur, forcing her to question not only his narrative but also her own assumptions about justice, language and her role as a translator. The book also portrays the challenges faced between the narrator and her husband, Billy, a film professor who, though well-meaning, grows emotionally distant. His increasing concern over his wife’s deep involvement with her clients creates a rift in their relationship.
Xhoga’s narrative confronts readers by posing questions on how truth is communicated and perceived, especially moments marked by the elusive nature of memory and trauma. The novel reflects the often invisible labor of interpreters, who navigate not only languages but also the emotional landscapes of those they help. With a prose style that is deceptively simple, Xhoga takes readers into a world where the lines between reality, memory and interpretation blur.
Born and raised in Tirana, Albania, Xhoga currently resides in Brooklyn, New York, having migrated to the US when she was a teenager, later earning her Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree in fiction from Texas State University. She has also worked in publishing in New York. “Misinterpretation” is her debut novel.
While the Booker Prize is awarded to the best original novel written in English and published in the UK or Ireland – and the International Booker celebrates fiction translated into English – Xhoga’s longlisting for the former has thrust her into the spotlight, opening doors to wider audiences and critical acclaim. The shortlist will be announced on 23 September and the winner on 10 November 2025.
K2.0 talked to Xhoga about her writing process, the genesis of “Misinterpretation,” and her views on sacrifice, masculinity and narrative ambiguity. She also reveals the pressures and paradoxes that come with literary success, especially in the competitive and often unpredictable landscape of the Booker Prize.
K2.0: Let’s start with the conception of “Misinterpretation.” How did the idea for the book come about?
Ledia Xhoga: Many years ago, a friend told me that an organization that helped survivors of torture needed an Albanian translator as a volunteer. The person they needed the translator for was someone from Kosovo, a man whose background was similar to Alfred’s. I think the organization found someone else for the job, but the idea of a torture survivor and his potential relationship with an interpreter stayed in my mind.
Your book explores themes of boundaries and the sacrifices people make for one another. Can you elaborate on this aspect and why it’s important to you?
What always interests me is the complexity of a situation, so not so much the sacrifice itself as to what they are giving up or are blind to while making that sacrifice. A character has to always make a choice, is a common refrain in writing classes. It’s the choices that reveal a character’s values, morals and push the story forward. I never write with a subject in mind; it’s usually character or situation-based.
I’m also interested in your writing process, especially when it comes to character-building. “Misinterpretation” features a complex protagonist with many layers – how did you approach creating this character?
I like writing in first person, probably because I can really access a character’s interiority and get into a flow of what they do or say. It’s probably like method acting; you become that person for a while, and you somehow know that they meditate while interpreting, or that they don’t like cleaning their apartment, or that they aren’t a jealous person, or that having a child is not that important to them. One of my writing professors used to say that the text is smarter than the writer. What he meant is that every word you write is also a clue to what comes next. The longer you write, the more you learn how to listen to the clues and elaborate on them. The subconscious is always at work, and it’s a mysterious process.
Ismail Kadare, Albania’s most well-known novelist, once said that he only wrote for about two hours every day, in the mornings. After that, he said his brain would get tired. He also mentioned that he would write by hand, in a café, away from distractions. What is your writing process in this sense?
Yes, I find it impossible to write for more than three hours in a row. Some days I’m only able to write for about twenty minutes as I have other things that need to be done. I always write on my laptop, but I do take notes on my phone. I prefer silence, but I can focus with noise, too.
Critics have noted that the narrator in “Misinterpretation” is unreliable and that her perceptions slip between reality, memory, and interpretation. Was it a deliberate choice to keep the narrator unnamed and at times unreliable?
I tried to think of some potential names, but they all sounded ridiculous, as if the character was eschewing them. So, then I said, “ok, fine, have no name, see if I care!” I’ve always been somewhat uncertain about the concept of unreliability in fiction. I mean, if a friend, let’s say, does something we do not expect, or tells us something that doesn’t sound true, we don’t think “oh, X is unreliable.” It’s always more specific than that, as in, oh, I wonder why they’re lying or why they’ve omitted this information, what’s behind that? Maybe it relates to the layers we talked about before?
How did the story develop? Do you have a structure before starting the writing process? How much of the story did emerge as you were writing?
My original idea was to work with a dual narrative. The interpreter would be the main character in one of the two stories. I spent a year trying to make that work and realized that I would have to cut one of the narratives. The story pretty much wrote itself after that, but fragments of the deleted story remained. I wrote an essay about that entire process on LitHub.
To what extent do your personal experiences influence your writing? How much connection do you feel with the main character of your book?
I’ve always thought that I’m incapable of writing a memoir. I truly enjoy making up things. I don’t have a problem with boundaries, for example, that’s why it was fun writing a character who did. The job of personal experiences, in my fiction, often seems to be, weirdly, to fill in gaps. I had never expected to write about the men hanging around schools in Tirana, but it somehow fit the story [The narrator recalls being stalked by an older man outside her school, reflecting on how normalized such harassment was when she was young.]
The interpreter is now somebody I used to know, like the song goes. Actually, it feels more like somebody I was married to for a bit.
One of the things I’ve liked the most about your prose is your ability to convey complicated and often aggressive situations in a simple language and tone. Is that a deliberate choice in your writing style or something that developed organically over time?
If a situation is already tense, a heightened language would distract from what’s going on. If your intention is to convey emotion in a scene, the best thing you can do is strip the scene of all descriptions of emotions and just allow the action and dialogue to carry the weight. The reader will feel more that way. So, both, maybe?
Critics have noted that this year’s Booker Prize longlist explores masculinity in many forms, “from teenagers on the cusp of adulthood to men grappling with trauma”. Do you see your book fitting within this theme as well?
Yes. The book focuses on a female protagonist, but there are elements of masculinity in many forms. Is Billy, a liberal film professor at NYU, the sort of man who allows his wife to follow her passion of helping immigrants, or someone who stands in the way? Alfred’s relationship with his wife could speak to that as well. He is struggling with his mental health, and his wife has a decisively dominant role in the marriage, yet he has feelings for the interpreter.
You have mentioned that you didn’t expect to be nominated for the Booker Prize, partly because your book was published by a relatively small publishing house in the US and UK. Could you share your thoughts on how the book industry works, and how you see your place in what is often considered one of the major literary scenes?
The first step after you finish a novel is finding a literary agent who agrees to represent you and takes the book to the publishing houses; they don’t read it otherwise!. The agent then keeps a cut from your earnings. This can be a very long process, as there are so many writers who are looking to be represented. My local café in Brooklyn is full of people writing novels and scripts. Some people get multiple offers from agents, which can be an indication that the book will garner lots of interest from the publishers. If more than one offer from the publishers is on the table, there is a chance the author’s advance – the money they pay against future earnings – might be significant. But even a high advance, to be honest, is not enough compensation for the time spent writing the book, if you live in the US.
I only had one agent who offered to represent me, and she’s been wonderful. She found two great small independent publishers, one in the U.S. and one in London.
As far as my place in the literary world, all I can do is try to do work that I can live with. The rest is perspective.
Douglas Stuart, the 2020 Booker winner, mentioned that winning the prize brought a strange pressure and changed how he viewed himself as a writer, having removed some of his outsider perspective. David Szalay, also longlisted this year, said that while being shortlisted transformed his career, “winning would be a difficult peak to come back from”. He was speaking here about being thought of as a close contender for the Booker Prize in 2016. How do you relate to these reflections? What do you think will change for you as a writer with your book being included on the longlist, and with the possibility of being shortlisted or even winning the Booker?
Yes, the pressure is strange and absolutely insane, especially if you’re used to writing in relative obscurity. I was looking forward to putting the book aside, to be honest. “Misinterpretation” went on submission to publishers more than three years ago, and I went on a book tour for many months after its publication, so I already did a lot of interviews, etc. I was looking forward to a quiet summer where I could focus on my next book, which I’m really excited about. But once the Booker was announced, I couldn’t do anything. There were so many interview requests, and here I’m back to talking about a book I’ve been dealing with for six years, if you count the time I spent writing it. I understand what Szalay means about winning the Booker; it’s likely a tremendous pressure to win, and it could be unhealthy for anxious writers. Don’t expect anyone to feel sorry for you, by the way. And, to take a step back for a moment, is there such a thing as competition in art? Is there such a thing as a “winner” when it comes to literature?
Your relative obscurity that you mentioned has also disappeared in the Albanian-speaking sphere. The media and the literary circles in Albania and Kosovo have noticed your success. How connected do you feel to Albania, and how does that influence your writing?
I’m the sort of person that needs some time to process things, so it has been overwhelming. But also heartwarming. I received a message from an Albanian woman in the US who told me that she cried when she saw my book at Barnes and Noble [a large bookseller in the U.S.], which made me cry, too, and I happened to be on the train. I mean, Albania is my country and it will always be, but I left when I was a teenager and now I’m in my 40s, so the major events in my life and all my higher education have been in the U.S. Whenever I go back, I pick up some books to read to stay in touch with the language. But languages evolve, so I don’t feel confident enough to write fiction in it. I would like to try at some point. I have also written things in English that don’t have anything to do with Albania, by the way. I think it would be fun to write something sci-fi one day, for example.
You mentioned your next book? What is it about? Or perhaps a different question – do you plan to make a significant change to your style, or will the book be written in a similar approach?
I don’t want to reveal the plot yet, but it will involve characters from different backgrounds orbiting artistic fame in New York City. A lot of it is from a male perspective, so I think people will find it different from “Misinterpretation.” Or, maybe not. You’ll have to let me know.
Feature image: Courtesy of Ledia Xhoga.
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