A ​reflection on "freedom" in a dramatic, beautifully written memoir of the end of Communism in the Balkans.

For precocious 11-year-old Lea Ypi, Albania’s Soviet-style socialism held the promise of a preordained future, a guarantee of security among enthusiastic comrades. That is, until she found herself clinging to a stone statue of Joseph Stalin, newly beheaded by student protests.

Communism had failed to deliver the promised utopia. One’s “biography”―class status and other associations long in the past―put strict boundaries around one’s individual future. When Lea’s parents spoke of relatives going to “university” or “graduating,” they were speaking of grave secrets...