Resul Shabani was born in 1944 in the village of Kalisht, in the Federal Republic of Macedonia. He attended schools in Struga and Skopje and graduated in Albanian Language and Literature from the University of Pristina. A leading poet, dramatist, prose writer and translator, he lives and works in Skopje, where he has worked as cultural editor of the Albanian newspaper Flaka andas editor-in-chief of the journals Jehona [Echoes] and Gezimi [Elations]. He has published 28 collections, including: Liqeni [Lake], 1974; [Sacred duty], 1978; Hamleti me plis të zi [Hamlet wearing a black cloak], 1978; and Oh, Amerika, Ох, Америка, [Oh, America] in Macedonian and Romanian, 1992. He has also published seven plays and a novel. He has translated leading Albanian writers into Macedonian, including the poems of Mother Teresa, Fatos Arapi, Xhevahir Spahiu and Visar Zhiti, as well as Macedonian writers into Albanian, including Kosta Racin, Blaže Koneski, Petre M. Andreevski and Eftim Kletnikov. His own writings have been translated into more than ten languages and he has received several literary awards in recognition of his work in both Macedonia and Albania, including the 2009 Mother Teresa state award.
