It’s April 3, some two weeks after the release of Xhenet Aliu’s second novel, Everybody Says It’s Everything (Random House), and the award-winning author has come home. “Southern is my origin story as a writer,” said Aliu, who was on campus for a reading with celebrated poet Jason Labbe, ’01.
Labbe, now an instructor in Southern’s creative writing program with a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Virginia, has been Aliu’s friend since high school. The two attended Southern together as well, and at the reading he introduced her to the crowd of about 200 with a memory of their early days as undergrads, sitting on campus and sharing their work: “She handed me a three-page assignment done for [Professor of English] Tim Parrish’s class. It began with ‘I used to be beautiful. Everyone said so,’ and it devastated me. . . . Xhenet has one of the strongest voices of any author out there.”
That voice has been honed by years of dedication to the craft. She had earned two advanced degrees — an MFA in creative writing from the University of North Carolina Wilmington and a Master of Library and Information Studies from the University of Alabama — when her first book, Domesticated Wild Things and Other Stories (University of Nebraska Press), won the prestigious Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Fiction in 2012.
“That award was life-changing for me, and it gave me the confidence to continue working on the novel which ultimately became Brass,” she says.
Brass would go on to earn both the Townsend Prize and the Georgia Author of the Year First Novel Prize. Set in Waterbury, Conn., it uses dual timelines to tell the story of a working-class mother and daughter. The novel, which was lauded as a top book of the year by Real Simple, Elle magazine, and more, explores concepts of identity, family, immigration, and the American Dream.
These themes remain central in Everybody Says It’s Everything, which follows Drita and Petrit (Peter), twins from Albania who are adopted and raised in Connecticut. Set in the 1990s during the war in Kosovo, the story again unfolds through parallel narratives, capturing the emotional distance between the two siblings: one chasing the American Dream, the other exploring his cultural roots and activism. (Petrit connects with a group of Albanians in the Bronx organizing for the Kosovo Liberation Army).
The novel received starred reviews from Publishers Review, BookPage and Kirkus, the latter noting: “Writing with warmth and sensitivity, compassion, and a clear-eyed command of the narrative, [Aliu] brings empathy and generosity . . . Family is about more than blood in this tenderhearted and touching novel — a riveting read.”
Connecticut Roots
Aliu is a trained researcher (recall the library degree), who also writes what she knows. “I am a born-and-raised Connecticutian,” she says, smiling from a computer screen during a March interview. Like many of the characters in her books, Aliu is Albanian and Lithuanian. She spent her early years in Waterbury (known as the “Brass City” for its manufacturing roots), before moving to the nearby town of Wolcott in high school.
Aliu is part of large, blended family of six siblings, raised in a small home with one TV. “I didn’t want to fight for it, so I started reading instead,” she says.
Her early book picks included The Baby-Sitters Club and Sweet Valley High. Discovering The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton with its exploration of class conflict, violence, and poverty, was a revelation. “It was grittier than anything I had read before. I remember realizing, wow, you can do this in fiction. It opened a door,” says Aliu.
A Southern Story
But pursing writing as a career seemed impossible. “I thought it was something you were born into, kind of like royalty,” she says.
College held its own mystique. Like 49 percent of Southern undergraduates today, Aliu was a first-generation college student. She transferred to Southern with credits from Post University and Connecticut Community College in Waterbury, planning to major in nursing. But there was a wait list for courses in the popular major, so she opted to tackle a few core requirements — including, fatefully, “Intro to Fiction” with Tim Parrish.
“This was my first day on Southern’s campus, my very first course, and I knew: this is what I wanted to do,” she says.
Aliu commuted to campus while working full time at a computer sales and repair shop in Naugatuck, juggling courses after work and between shifts. Parrish became her undergraduate mentor, a kindred spirit from a working-class background who helped demystify the writing life.
“He didn’t treat it like some fantastical, mystical, exotic calling. It was something you could set out to do by practicing, engaging, and being part of a writers’ community,” says Aliu, who graduated magna cum laude with an undergraduate degree in English.
In the following years, she continued writing while earning her graduate degrees and holding down various day jobs. Aliu has worked as a private investigator specializing in financial markets and as a librarian at a university.
The publication of Brass opened a new door: a full-time faculty position teaching creative writing at The University of North Carolina Greensboro. Like Southern, UNC Greensboro has a high percentage of first-gen college students, an important consideration to Aliu.
“I give so much credit to Tim Parrish, especially now that I’m a college professor,” she says of her mentor’s ability to build a robust writing community that embraces all — including students who work full time, commute to campus, and are sometimes older than the traditional undergraduate.
In fact, Aliu shares that Elsie, a main character in Brass, was inspired, in part, by her Southern classmates — “women who had children, maybe gotten divorced, were managing a lot, and decided to go back to school. . . . . They were starting all over again in their 30s, 40s. and even 50s. They were gritty, determined, smart, and cool. I loved having them as classmates,” she says.
In a full-circle moment, Aliu’s book tour took her to Albania this summer. She visited her father’s home village, located in present-day North Macedonia, where an aunt and uncle still live.
A planned shift in writing focus brings further excitement. To date, Aliu has focused on literary realism: stories about families, immigrants, and working-class people. Now, she is changing tack.
“I am currently working on something that has elements of the supernatural, leaning toward horror,” she says. Aliu was a fan before turning to “serious writing” in college. “So, I rejected that side of my curiosity. Now, I’m giving myself permission to go back,” she says.
She sees the prospect as challenging, creative, and fun. Dare we say, gritty, in the best sense of the word. ■
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