Jolanda Kodra

Jolanda Kodra (1910–1963) was an Italian-Albanian writer and translator, one of the first women writers in the Albanian language, as well as a translator into the Italian language of the works of Albanian writers, such as Ndre Mjeda, Migjeni, Petro Marko, and Sterjo Spasse.

Life Jolanda Kodra was born an Italian, Iolanda Guazzoni, in 1910, in Rome, Italy, and was a niece of Enrico Guazzoni, an Italian screenwriter and film director. She was pursuing studies in a classical lyceum, when she met with Malo Kodra, originally from Gjirokastër, who was a student in Rome. A fitness teacher, he brought her to Albania in 1931. She soon learned Albanian and started not only to communicate well, but also to publish poetry in Albanian as well as literary criticism articles in well known magazines Hylli i Dritës, Përpjekja shqiptare, Fryma, Njeriu and Tomori on Naim Frashëri, Gjergj Fishta, Migjeni, and Ndre Mjeda. Kodra worked particularly on Migjeni and Mjeda, which she later translated into Italian. She was one of the first women to publish in Albania, in the company of Selfixhe Ciu and Musine Kokalari.