Klara Buda

Buda writes prose, poetry, fiction and TV plays.

• Name — Klara Buda • Birthplace — Elbasan, Albania • Occupation — Journalist, writer • Education — *Sorbonne • École pratique des hautes études • Relatives — Aleks Buda, Athina Buda • Family — Buda

Klara Buda was born in Elbasan, Albania. After graduating in modern literature at the Sorbonne, she studied history of art at the École pratique des hautes études. In 1997, she embarked on her career as a freelance journalist at the BBC before joining Radio France Internationale (RFI). She worked for a short period at UNESCO's Communication Division in 1998 but returned to RFI in 1999, first as a specialized journalist, then from 2005 as a principal editor. Appointed editor in chief in 2006, she headed RFI's Albanian department until 2010. She also has a PhD in literary, musical and visual thinking. In 2011, in New York City, she founded "Beratinus Media", a TV and film production company, and then 2013 she founded Klarabudapost.com, an online site promoting global citizen journalism. She was awarded the Francophone Personality of the Year prize from the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie in 2013. In 2014, she created, hosted and directed Albania I love You, a TV show, which through portraits of prominent figures examines the evolution of traditional Albanian rites and customs during its period of political transition years, both in Albania itself and internationally. After serving as an external advisor to the Albanian Foreign Affairs Ministry in 2012, in 2015 Buda founded the New York Albanian Cultural Diplomacy Corporation with a view to promoting Albanian culture in the United States. Her novel Chloroform, set in communist Albania, provides a compelling insight into the regime’s production and reproduction of a new type of human being. It focuses on the oppressive system’s efforts to establish a new kind of society, run by fear." The novel is marked by questions about identity and an exploration of the role of free individuals in totalitarian systems. Buda describes what she calls "islands of inner freedom," which vary from one individual to another but help each of them survive, despite the dictatorship.