Drago Siliqi

Drago Siliqi (9 June 1930 – 13 July 1963) was an Albanian poet, literary critic, and publisher. At the age of 14 he became a scout and then a partisan of the National Liberation Movement. He published his first collection of poetry, and then pursued university studies at the Maxim Gorky Literature Institute in Moscow.

After he returned to Albania from his studies, he became an editor and, later, a publisher and literary critic at the state owned Naim Frashëri Publishing House. There, he encouraged writers such as Ismail Kadare through his literary reviews. He also led the company to publish more translations of foreign literary works into Albanian through the hiring of affirmed writers. Siliqi died in 1963, at the age of 33, on board Aeroflot Flight 12 which crashed near Irkutsk, Soviet Union. Provided by Wikipedia