Albanian speakers first learned of haiku in the 1960s from English and French translations, Japanese haiku were translated into Albanian beginning in the 1970s, and substantial collections of translations of Japanese poetry and haiku appeared in 1982 and 1984 respectively. The first book of original haiku in Albanian appeared in 1999, and two years later the KlubHaiku Shqiptar (Albanian Haiku Club) was founded in the city of Elbasan.