Professor Sami Repishti was born in Shkodra in 1925. In 1946, he was arrested and after 14 months of torture by former State Security, was sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment and forced labor, of which he served 10. In 1959, he escaped to Yugoslavia and later, in 1962, he immigrated to the United States. Among other works, he has published Teardrops, a short collection of stories about his fellow prisoners, and Under Rozafa’s Shadow, a memoir in which he traces the rise of communism in Shkodra and details his experience in prison and across Albania’s labor camps. Since immigrating to the US, Professor Repishti has been an active participant in the Albanian-American community and has co-founded several Albanian-American organizations.

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