Petro Marko was born on November 25^th, 1913 in the village of Dhërmi, southern Albania. He started writing at the age of twenty and his first works were published in journals of the time with support from Ernest Koliqi his mentor. His articles would be published in periodicals as Lirija, Albania e Re, Bota e Re, and Koha e Re magazine since he was 20. From March 1, 1936 he became the editor of ABC, a literary review which was banned by the monarchist authorities soon after, following with Marko being arrested and sent to internment. In August 1936 he joined the Garibaldi Battalion of the Republican forces of the Spanish Civil War along with other notable Albanians like Mehmet Shehu, Asim Vokshi, Emrush Myftari and Thimi Gogozoto.

During the Spanish Civil War along with Skënder Luarasi, son of Petro Nini Luarasi he published in Madrid the Albanian newspaper The Volunteer of Freedom, which publication was interrupted after two issues, due to of the military state in Madrid. His best-known work Hasta La Vista published in Tirana in 1958 was largely influenced by his experiences during the Spanish Civil War. In 1940 after being repatriated from France to Albania he was arrested by the Italian army, imprisoned in Bari, then and sent along with 600 other prisoners to Ustica, an island of the Tyrrhenian Sea from 1941 to 1943, finishing with Regina Coeli prison near Rome in 1944.

In October 1944 he joined the forces of the Albanian National Liberation Front as a partisan. After the war he became editor-in-chief of the periodical Bashkimi (Unity), but was arrested again in 1947 on political charges to be released in 1949. Petro Marko would be accused of giving information to Anglo-Americans during his time as editor-in-chief. His last prison time would be May 1947-May 1950. Nevertheless, Marko remained an idealist and antifascist.

His time in the communist prison would be described in his Interview with myself: Clouds and stones. This book expresses his feelings about his Albanian identity.

He passed away in 1991, while in 2003 the President of Albania decorated him with the “Honor of the Nation”.

/k.s./