Daughter of the Eagle (Blackie, 7s. 6d.) is the autobiography
of an Albanian girl. The author is now twenty-two, and represents the generation that is coming under Western influence and breaking away from the Moslem traditions that still govern family life. Her book, written in fluent English, gives a good picture of the present transition period, and her unusual gifts of character and intelligence enable her to sympathise with the views of the older generation, against whom she had a continual struggle, as well as with her own. Her father was a man of some wealth and influence and her childhood was passed in comfort- able circumstances between houses in Krip and Valona, the fashionable resort. Her father was shocked when his daughter refused to be veiled and went, on her own initiative, to a school run by some American women, refusing to accept the obscure role of the typical Moslem girl of marriageable age. She became a teacher herself in a government school, but her advanced ideas lost her the job. So, to the horror of her family, she went to America, and wrote her story. As it is probably the first autobiography of a modern Albanian woman, it is of con- siderable interest.
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