Xhevdet Bajraj (1960–2022) was a poet, dramatist, translator, and professor. His works of poetry, 29 volumes wrought in both Albanian and Spanish, have been translated into English, German, Danish, Serbian, Slovenian, Hungarian, Turkish, and Polish. He was the recipient of many awards, among them, the prize for poetry, conferred by the Kosovo Writers’ Society in 1993, 1996, and 2000; the Goliardos International Prize for Poetry in 2004; and the Ali Podrimja Award in 2019 and 2021. His monodrama, Slaying the Mosquito, received the 2010 Katarina Josipi award for best original drama written in Albanian, and the Ptemio prize, given by the National Theatre and the Ministry of Culture of Kosovo in 2011.

Bajraj and his family were deported from Kosovo in May of 1999. Through the International Parliament of Writers and their program for persecuted writers, he was granted asylum and a fellowship at the Casa Refugio Citlaltepetl in Mexico. In the years that followed, he became a full professor of creative writing and literature at the Autonomous University of Mexico City and was inducted into the Sistema Nacional de Creadores de Arte.