Arlinda Dudaj was born in Tirana, Albania on October 7, 1977. From a very young age, I was especially attached to literature and all that was related to that, and was also associated to foreign languages which I started learning at an early age. I attended high school for linguistics where I studied the German and English languages, for which I received a Diploma with high honors, and later continued in the years to come with my university studies in the same field.
After my studies for foreign language translation and interpretation, I started working as a assistant/professor of foreign languages in the Department of the German Language of the Philological School at the University of Tirana. During this time, I started working with the idea of publishing different books and literature, but in particular, I began working with translations of contemporary literature which until that time, were not present in the Albanian market. I started working with books in their original format, which I studied throughout my academic career, but it was the kind of literature that an Albanian reader did not recognize.
On January 25 of 2001, Dudaj Publishing House was created as a relatively small but modest publishing company. Soon after, I started understanding the difficulties of literature in such a problematic and small market as Albania. My success was also credited to the fact that I followed every international book fair and fellowships throughout the world, which always helped me stay connected in a network of very well known and extraordinary editors and authors from all over the world. This was also a great way to maintain an international standard in our publishing house and pursue very high goals that we had as a company. As of today, the Dudaj Publishing House is among the leading publishing companies in Albania, and it is the house of distinguished writers such as Annie Ernaux, Mario Vargas Llosa, Javier Marias, Javier Cercas, Jose Saramago, Toni Morrisson, Emmanuel Carrere, Bernhard Schlink, Patrick Süskind, Robert Menasse, Lea Ypi, Roberto Saviano, Antonio Tabucchi, Alessandro Baricco to mention a few.
