Gazmend Kapllani is an Albanian-born novelist, journalist and scholar - 2012 Radcliffe Harvard Fellow, 2013 Brown University Visiting Scholar and 2013 IIE-SFR Fellow. His novel A Short Border Handbook (2009), a best-seller in Greece, was translated into Danish, English, French, and Polish, and was short-listed for the John D. Criticos Prize. My Name is Europe ( 2010 in Greek/ 2013 in French) and The Last Page (2012) explore how totalitarianism, immigration, borders, and Balkan history have shaped private lives and narratives. His books have become successful theatrical plays in Greece and Denmark. For the past 21 years, he has lived in Athens and written his novels in Greek, which is not his mother tongue. He received his PhD in political science and history from Panteion University in Athens, with a dissertation on the image of Albanians in the Greek press and of Greeks in the Albanian press. Through his work as an author and a columnist for leading Greek newspapers, Kapllani has been an advocate for human rights, fairness, and diversity, receiving Greek and international recognition. Currently, he teaches History and Creative Writing at Emerson College.