[4] After the defeat of the League of Prizren, he emigrated to the Middle East, and settled in Egypt[5] and, later, in Lebanon where, helped by then Governor Pashko Vasa, he worked as an engineer in railway construction.
[2] It appeared in journals such as Faik Konitza's Albania, the Albanian periodicals published in Egypt, and the Shkodër religious monthly Elçija i Zemers t'Jezu Krisctit ("The Messenger of the Sacred Heart").
Shiroka, who also used the pseudonyms Gegë Postripa[8] and Ulqinaku, is the author of at least sixty poems, three short stories, articles and several translations, in particular of religious works for Catholic liturgy.
His verse collection, Zâni i zêmrës, Tirana, 1933, ("The voice of the heart"), which was composed at the turn of the century, was published by Ndoc Nikaj two years before Shiroka's death in Beirut.
[3] Shiroka's verse, inspired by early-19th-century French and Italian romantic poets such as Alfred de Musset (1810–1857), Alfonse de Lamartine (1790–1869), and Tommaso Grossi (1790–1853), whom he had read as a young man in Shkodër, does not cover any unusual thematic or lexical range, nor is it all of literary quality, though the latter assertion is no doubt valid for most Rilindja poets.