"Don’t Look Back at the Burning House" 

is more than a photo book. It is a moving testimony to Albania’s transformation during the 1990s, a time suspended between upheaval and renewal, hope and pain.

German photographer Jutta Benzenberg captured a country in transition through powerful black-and-white images, alongside writer Ardian Klosi, who accompanied her on this journey.

In 2006, a tragic fire destroyed almost her entire archive from those years. Yet from the burnt negatives, a new artistic body of work emerged years later fragments that speak of the past, of memory, and of survival.

Published by the Heinrich Böll Foundation Tirana, designed by Olsi Hoxha, the book also includes an essay by renowned Albanian author Bashkim Shehu. It invites critical reflection on a decade whose impact is still felt in Albania today and shows how even burnt images can continue to live on.