"Albanian literature has managed to emancipate itself from the hackneyed dogmas of the communist era by searching for new forms, as evidenced by the originality of Angelus Novus, in which Shehu gives us a novel that stands out for its rare delicacy." ISMAÍL KADARÉ

What do the setbacks of the life of the Berlin philosopher Walter Benjamin have in common and the hazards that, almost half a century later, overwhelm a young political prisoner, of little academic training and prodigious mind, in the Albanian prison of Burrel? His fondness for the unaffordable, his penchant for suicide, yes, but above all the figure of the Angelus Novus, the angel of history who, looking back into the past, perceives only an immense accumulation of ruins upon ruins.

The narrator, like the allegorical figure, would also like to awaken the dead and lift the rubble. That is why he articulates stories and brings together his own memories and those of others that testify to the dire fate of his fellow captive, reflecting that of so many others imprisoned by the machinery of power. Hence he pursues the purpose of immortalizing his comrade in the manner of Flaubert: "When you write a friend's biography, you must do it as if you were taking revenge for him."