Radio România Internațional

Tag: literature

The Planetar Literary Club

The Planetar Literary Club was set up in 1992, and was an important nursery for Romanian sci-fi writers. For over ten years, every week writer Constantin Pavel gathered together a handful of science and sci-fi enthusiasts, such as Traian Badulescu, Codru Paun, Razvan Varlan, Andrei Ionescu, Catalin Stefan, Liviu Surugiu, and others. It was a place that shaped a large number of writers, scientists, journalists, and graphic artists that went on to become well-known in their areas.

After going their own separate ways, the Planetar Literary Club has re-opened, giving new talent the opportunity to take flight. At the launch event, we asked founder Constantin Pavel to give us a few details about its history:

“We just thought we would have ourselves a literary club. I finally found support with a history teacher at our high school, Mrs. Stanca. I put up fliers everywhere, we told our friends, and they came. It was a fairly small high school classroom, I came in a blue suit, with a shirt and tie, with a fancy briefcase, and the kids loved it. The group formed right away.

The group met in various places, including a sports arena in Giulesti, and Constantin Pavel told us how it all went to develop:

“In the end, with support from astronomer Harald Alexandrescu, the director of the Astronomical Observatory, we landed at the Admiral Vasile Urseanu Observatory. There the literary club thrived, we had two wonderful years and six or seven more until if faded away, but during that time, the 60 or 70 strong team took part in most of sci-fi manifestations in the country, and Planetar made a name for itself.

Constantin Pavel told us how the name for the club came to him, while he was playing:

“I got the idea playing with Legos, I got the set from an uncle who was an aviator. It was a Lego set with astronauts. They had a flag, and on the flag they had their logo, a planet and an arrow representing the trajectory of a ship leaving the planet. This is how I got the idea of having a literary club called Planetar. Life took us all in different directions, but I was very happy that some extraordinary people came out of there. What we will go on to do will be a bit different from what we did there, but it is on the same lines. It will be a center where we can each take over a satellite, we plan on opening clubs in various schools, I think people are eager for us to do so.

Traian Badulescu was 15 when he came to the club, where he found an environment for growth:

“I am very happy we reopened the Planetar club. When we first convened in 1992, in the initial formula, I don’t think we were more than 20, at a time when people met more often, it was before the Internet era, before mobile telephones. It was effervescent, and I don’t think we realized it at the time. Planetar changed my life. It wasn’t only about sci-fi, it was much about avant-garde. It helped us all a lot in life. I remember that in 1991 I went with a colleague to the Dalles event hall, where Mihai Badescu with Alexandru Mironov were screening each Sunday a sci-fi movie, and then held discussions about it. That was really interesting. I was flirting with writing, but after that I started writing in earnest. At some point we had sessions twice a week, and we felt it was our duty to write something for each session. We were each others’ critics, we wrote a lot.

One other name that stands out from among the members in Liviu Surugiu, whose sci-fi debut came in 1994, and he went on to win numerous awards. His latest published work, Pulsar, had sold over 6,000 copies by 2017. He told us about the club:

“I am looking to the future with courage, we have a long time to live from now on. We should identify the needs of those to join, those we are trying to attract. I think by association, if I see the letter A I think of the picture in the first ABC I had as a kid, if I see a B I think of a balloon. When I think of the Planetar club, I don’t think first of the publishing house, even though it is central. I think of the satellites we are about to create.

The literary club will also have the benefit of the Ion Hobana Library, a source of rare specialized books, available to all the members.

3 September 2019
The Observator Cultural Awards Gala

The 13th edition of the
Observator Cultural Awards Gala was held on April 9 at the Odeon Theatre in
Bucharest. On this occasion we talked to Ovidiu Simonca, deputy editor in chief
with the Observator Cultural magazine, about the latest edition of the gala and
contemporary Romanian literature. One of the novelties this year is Observator
Universitas, an award bestowed by students of philology faculties to a volume
of poetry. The starting point for the discussion was the Observator Lyceum
award, which has reached its fourth edition, bestowed by students from the I.L
Caragiale, George Cosbuc, Iulia Hasdeu, Gheorghe Lazar, Mihai Viteazul, Sf.
Sava, Gheorghe Sincai and Tudor Vianu high schools in Bucharest. Observator
Lyceum is a project started in 2016 by the Observator Cultural magazine, with
support from the National Museum of Romanian Literature, similar to the
prestigious French award Prix Goncourt des Lyceens. The purpose of the project
is to create a communication platform between contemporary Romanian writers and
the young readership, in an attempt to bring the latter closer to Romanian
literature and encourage them to read more. Ovidiu Simonca.

It was a very interesting
experience, the students who made up the jury came to our office and together
we talked about all the books nominated in the fiction award. I’m glad these
young people will become future critics and professional readers of Romanian
literature. We should say the students who bestowed the Observator Lyceum award
are coordinated by an exceptional teacher, who encourages them to read
contemporary literature. As regards the novelty of this year’s edition of the
Observator Cultural Awards Gala, the Observator Universitas award, we had
students from the philology sections of the University of Bucharest, the
Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj, the Alexandru Ioan Cuza University in Iasi and
the Lucian Blaga University in Sibiu who selected a poetry volume from the
shortlist. So the readership is there, the future of Romanian literature is
secure and the books are there as well. The only problem is we need to be more
visible at international level.

The Observator Lyceum award was
given to Cristina Andrei for her volume Matriarchate,
released by Nemira Publishers. The Observator Universitas award was bestowed to
Robert Gabriel Elekes for the volume A
Drone Just for Me, published by Max Blecher Publishing House. We talked to
Ovidiu Simonca about the publishers’ growing propensity for Romanian
literature:

I want to say the decision of
Humanitas Publishers to publish more Romanian literature books was very
inspired. Writer Andreea Rasuceanu, the coordinator of Romanian Writers collection,
selected good titles last year and continues to publish high-quality
literature. At any rate, the competition between Humanitas, Nemira and Polirom
publishers in this respect is most welcome, it means publishers are relying on
Romanian literature more and more. Based on the books released so far, I
believe we will have a very good year, with lots of books bought and discussed.
In fact, 2018 was good year as well in that respect.

Romanian literature is increasingly
diverse, and readers and publishers alike appreciate it more and more. Yet the
important thing is to promote and translate it, Ovidiu Simonca believes. In
other words, Romanian publishers need to get involved more to find professional
translators of Romanian literature. It is the only way we can make a difference
at international level, Ovidiu Simonca believes:

In recent years we had translations
of Romanian works in German and Spanish, which were very well received by
international critics. And I refer to the volume Lost Morning, translated in
German by Eva Ruth Wemme and published by Aufbau publishers, and the success of
Mircea Cartarescu’s volumes Orbitor and Solenoid published in Latin America
and Spain. Orbitor was actually declared Book of the Year 2017 in Spain. I would
also like to mention the success enjoyed in Germany by Nora Iuga’s books, proof
of which are the numerous eulogies her books have received. More often than
not, however, we don’t manage to reach the big publishing houses, which after
all give an author his prestige, to the extent to which that author is part of
universal literature. Before 2007, before our EU accession, there was a growing
interest for Romanian literature. It was then that the Romanian Cultural
Institute implemented a translation programme, by means of which 20 volumes
reached the big publishing houses in Europe, and Romanian authors were guests
in big book fairs, in Leipzig, London and Paris. Right now, my feeling is that
the big European publishing houses are not publishing Romanian literature, with
few exceptions.

At the 13th edition of
the Observator Cultural Awards Gala the Gheorghe Craciun award for Opera Omnia
was granted to poet, writer, playwright and translator Constantin Abaluta. The
award for fiction went to Gabriela Adamesteanu for her novel Fontana di Trevi brought out by Polirom
Publishers. The poetry award went ex
aequo to Cosmin Perta, for his volume Lullaby
for My Generation, which was brought out by Paralela 45 Publishers, as well
as to Vasile Leac’s Monoideal,
released by Nemira Publishers.

4 May 2019
The Observator Cultural Awards Gala

The 13th edition of the
Observator Cultural Awards Gala was held on April 9 at the Odeon Theatre in
Bucharest. On this occasion we talked to Ovidiu Simonca, deputy editor in chief
with the Observator Cultural magazine, about the latest edition of the gala and
contemporary Romanian literature. One of the novelties this year is Observator
Universitas, an award bestowed by students of philology faculties to a volume
of poetry. The starting point for the discussion was the Observator Lyceum
award, which has reached its fourth edition, bestowed by students from the I.L
Caragiale, George Cosbuc, Iulia Hasdeu, Gheorghe Lazar, Mihai Viteazul, Sf.
Sava, Gheorghe Sincai and Tudor Vianu high schools in Bucharest. Observator
Lyceum is a project started in 2016 by the Observator Cultural magazine, with
support from the National Museum of Romanian Literature, similar to the
prestigious French award Prix Goncourt des Lyceens. The purpose of the project
is to create a communication platform between contemporary Romanian writers and
the young readership, in an attempt to bring the latter closer to Romanian
literature and encourage them to read more. Ovidiu Simonca.

It was a very interesting
experience, the students who made up the jury came to our office and together
we talked about all the books nominated in the fiction award. I’m glad these
young people will become future critics and professional readers of Romanian
literature. We should say the students who bestowed the Observator Lyceum award
are coordinated by an exceptional teacher, who encourages them to read
contemporary literature. As regards the novelty of this year’s edition of the
Observator Cultural Awards Gala, the Observator Universitas award, we had
students from the philology sections of the University of Bucharest, the
Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj, the Alexandru Ioan Cuza University in Iasi and
the Lucian Blaga University in Sibiu who selected a poetry volume from the
shortlist. So the readership is there, the future of Romanian literature is
secure and the books are there as well. The only problem is we need to be more
visible at international level.

The Observator Lyceum award was
given to Cristina Andrei for her volume Matriarchate,
released by Nemira Publishers. The Observator Universitas award was bestowed to
Robert Gabriel Elekes for the volume A
Drone Just for Me, published by Max Blecher Publishing House. We talked to
Ovidiu Simonca about the publishers’ growing propensity for Romanian
literature:

I want to say the decision of
Humanitas Publishers to publish more Romanian literature books was very
inspired. Writer Andreea Rasuceanu, the coordinator of Romanian Writers collection,
selected good titles last year and continues to publish high-quality
literature. At any rate, the competition between Humanitas, Nemira and Polirom
publishers in this respect is most welcome, it means publishers are relying on
Romanian literature more and more. Based on the books released so far, I
believe we will have a very good year, with lots of books bought and discussed.
In fact, 2018 was good year as well in that respect.

Romanian literature is increasingly
diverse, and readers and publishers alike appreciate it more and more. Yet the
important thing is to promote and translate it, Ovidiu Simonca believes. In
other words, Romanian publishers need to get involved more to find professional
translators of Romanian literature. It is the only way we can make a difference
at international level, Ovidiu Simonca believes:

In recent years we had translations
of Romanian works in German and Spanish, which were very well received by
international critics. And I refer to the volume Lost Morning, translated in
German by Eva Ruth Wemme and published by Aufbau publishers, and the success of
Mircea Cartarescu’s volumes Orbitor and Solenoid published in Latin America
and Spain. Orbitor was actually declared Book of the Year 2017 in Spain. I would
also like to mention the success enjoyed in Germany by Nora Iuga’s books, proof
of which are the numerous eulogies her books have received. More often than
not, however, we don’t manage to reach the big publishing houses, which after
all give an author his prestige, to the extent to which that author is part of
universal literature. Before 2007, before our EU accession, there was a growing
interest for Romanian literature. It was then that the Romanian Cultural
Institute implemented a translation programme, by means of which 20 volumes
reached the big publishing houses in Europe, and Romanian authors were guests
in big book fairs, in Leipzig, London and Paris. Right now, my feeling is that
the big European publishing houses are not publishing Romanian literature, with
few exceptions.

At the 13th edition of
the Observator Cultural Awards Gala the Gheorghe Craciun award for Opera Omnia
was granted to poet, writer, playwright and translator Constantin Abaluta. The
award for fiction went to Gabriela Adamesteanu for her novel Fontana di Trevi brought out by Polirom
Publishers. The poetry award went ex
aequo to Cosmin Perta, for his volume Lullaby
for My Generation, which was brought out by Paralela 45 Publishers, as well
as to Vasile Leac’s Monoideal,
released by Nemira Publishers.

4 May 2019
FILIT International Festival of Literature and Translation in Iasi

The 6th International Festival of Literature and Translation hosted by the city of Iasi, in northeastern Romania, between October 3 and 7, brought together authors boasting millions of copies sold all over the world, authors nominated for or winners of prizes such as National Book Award, Man Booker Prize, Goncourt, the EU Prize for Literature, or the Nordic Council Literature Prize. The list of guests included Jonathan Franzen (USA), Jón Kalman Stefánsson (Iceland), Kamila Shamsie (Great Britain), Sylvie Germain (France), Iuri Andruhovici (Ukraine), Eduardo Caballero (Spain), Evald Flisar (Slovenia), Catherine Lovey (Switzerland), Lluis-Anton Baulenas (Spai), Goce Smilevski (Macedonia), Roland Orcsik (Hungary), Sveta Dorosheva (Ukraine/Israel), Lorenzo Silva (Spain), Yannick Haenel (France), Tomas Zmeskal (the Czech Republic), Carl Frode Tiller (Norway), Catherine Gucher (France).

Here is writer and screenwriter Florin Lazarescu, one of the founders and organizers of the most important festival of literature in Romania: “FILIT is a very big project, it’s actually a synthesis of several projects, and each of them is so complex, that it could be described as a festival in itself. It includes the FILIT evenings, hosted by the National Theatre, events hosted in the central tent, and some 40 events unfolding in five days. I would like to mention some of the events such as those at the Childhood Home, at the Fantasy House, and the much appreciated ‘Writers in high-schools’ project. But, as I said, these are events that are so different from one another, each with their own structure. We are talking about 130 events organized in five days. FILIT is actually a show of literature. If I were to speak of the Poetry Night alone, we organized a marathon, with 50 of today’s best poets participating. They are not as famous as those participating in the FILIT nights, such as Jonathan Franzen of the US, Sylvie Germain of France or Eric Vuillard, the winner of Prix Goncourt. But they too attract a large audience. And I think this is one of FILIT’s successes, to attract an extremely large audience. For instance, we had a guest who told us he knew about FILIT from the famous Russian writer Evgeny Vodolazkin, who characterized the festival as extraordinary.”

Besides writers, FILIT brings together hundreds of professionals from the cultural environment: translators, editors, festival organizers, literary critics, booksellers, book distributors, managers and journalists. Florica Ciodaru-Courriol has translated from Romanian into French and had books by Hortensia Papadat-Bengescu, Rodica Draghincescu, Marta Petreu, Iulian Ciocan, Ioan Popa, Catalin Pavel, Horia Ursu, published at such publishers as Jacqueline Chambon, Non Lieu, l’Age d’Homme, Autre Temps, Autrement and Didier Jeunesse.

We asked her to tell us about the events she participated in at this year’s edition of the festival: “I came to FILIT to present a Francophone writer, Catherine Lovey, who was published by an important publishing house in France, and whose books I have translated from French into Romanian. At FILIT I ran several translation workshops, one titled ArsTraducendi, for students with the National College in Iasi. I understand that top students of the best high-schools will be attending. I met part of them last year as well at FILIT, when I had a very interesting workshop which I jointly ran with my husband, translator Jean Louis Curriol. Together we’ll also take part in a conference staged by the Department of French language of the Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, a conference moderated by translator and Professor Cristina Modreanu. For that meeting I picked a short fragment from “The Bunker” a novel by an upcoming young writer Tudor Ganea, so we will be working on that book. Another event I’m participating in is a meeting with French and Romanian publishers, a meeting themed ‘Who cares about Romanian literature’ because I do care about Romanian literature.“

A novelty of this edition is the launch of the collection ‘Legendary writers’, which seeks to bring center-stage such Romanian writers as Ion Creangă, Mihai Eminescu or Mihail Sadoveanu to whom museums are dedicated, that are part of the network of the Iasi National Museum of Romanian Literature.

Jointly with 10 other contemporary Romanian writers, writer and journalist Adela Greceanu took the challenge of participating in the project themed Legendary writers, and wrote Vasile Alecsandri’s Story.

Speaking about that, here is Adela Greceanu herself: ”Vasile Alecsandri’s story cannot be taken out of the context of his generation, the generation of 1848, a generation that was extremely important for our modern history, in fact everything began with that generation. It is from them that everything began and from their parents, those far-sighted Moldavian and Wallachian boyars, who, despite their propensity for Eastern clothes as seen in the epoch’s paintings, decided to send their children to study in Paris and in other European capitals. So Vasile Alecsandri went to Paris where he learnt of progress and modernity, and of how to make a revolution. They subsequently returned to the Romanian principalities, trying to apply what they had learnt from the French revolutionaries. Also in Paris they learnt about the idea of nation-state which they wanted to bring to the Romania principalities, and eventually they succeeded to make that dream come true. Those were some great times in Romania’s history.”

The FILIT International Festival of Literature and Translation in Iasi is a project financed by the Iasi County Council through the Iasi National Museum of Romanian Literature. This year’s edition is also run under the aegis of the European Commission.

13 October 2018
On lost manuscripts with writer Bogdan Suceava

“From Aristotle to Hemingway, there is an entire history of manuscripts that are forever lost and which might have revolutionised literature, philosophy, mathematics and physics. How tragic is the definitive loss of a manuscript? But what if the author of the lost manuscript wrote other invaluable works?” These are some of the questions posed by the writer and mathematician Bogdan Suceava in his new book published at the end of 2017 by Polirom, called “The History of Lapses. On Lost Manuscripts”. On 22nd December 1989, when the Romanian Revolution broke out, Bogdan Suceava, who at the time was a student at the Faculty of Mathematics in Bucharest, saw the Central University Library on fire. “In the middle of Bucharest, and no one could do anything about it. Lots of rumours circulated. I don’t know the cause of the fire, but I remember thinking: so that’s how libraries burn. That’s how the Library of Alexandria must have burnt”, writes Bogdan Suceava. That incident appears to be one of the triggers for his new book. A professor at the Department of Mathematics at the California State University in Fullerton and the author of 13 books of prose and several books on the history of mathematics, Bogdan Suceava tells us he believes a review of the most important lost manuscripts is more necessary than ever:

“I thought this book was necessary first of all in order to clarify my own image about literature and the role of the novel today. At the end of the day, we can ask ourselves why we still read and why we still write novels. What if the future holds a world in which we will no longer read novels? Is this the time certain literary genres are beginning to die out and interest in the traditional values of literature begins to dwindle? I believe the short answer is no, I think people will keep on reading. I believe we will always be able to find a type of story, a type of novel that will be necessary in the future, just they have always been necessary in the past. And I said to myself books that are absolutely necessary are the books that help us reconstruct scenes from the past, moments that seem relevant for the world we live in. Filling up such obscure moments-episodes of the past with a well-written story seems to me absolutely useful and it’s all about a special kind of usefulness as regards culture. And I don’t think something like that could be replaced by social network posts, messages or video-clips. There are certain things which are purely literary, while the reconstruction of several important pages of the past seems to guarantee the viability of the novel as a genre.”

“Once the book is lost, maybe the happiest twist in the tale could be fate of the second part of Aristotle’s Poetics, which means that another author, such as Umberto Eco, should invent a story over the ruins of absence. And that is not necessarily the initial book, about which we all agree it has been lost forever, but speculation on the context of its disappearance. And that could turn into a novel”, Bogdan Suceava writes.

“With ‘The Name of the Rose’ I was lucky, I read it when I was seventeen, and I realized rather early in my life that there was something very important there. Yet there was another important moment, the moment I prepared a course in the history of mathematics, trying to compile a list of the things I would teach for that course. And that’s how I found out that many books from the Classical Antiquity period were missing. For instance, I discovered that a volume written by Cicero, a book that Saint Augustine liked a lot and which meant a great deal for the progress of young Augustine, was actually missing, it had disappeared. And that may really hurt you, at a very personal level. And you actually want to find out what has happened with the memory of humankind. But that dawned upon me very late in my life. I think you need to be old enough to be able to appreciate the true value of such a loss. I realized that over the past two years.”

Bogdan Suceava chose to leave for the United States, as he wanted to study mathematics under the supervision of a famous Chinese specialist, whom he also mentions in his recently launched volume “The History of Lapses. On lost manuscripts”. Bogdan Suceava earned his PhD in Mathematics from the Michigan State University, in 2002. He currently holds a teaching position with the California State University. Notwithstanding, he has returned to literature from time to time:

“I believe literature makes us more wholesome. I for one do need literature and I think that were I only to stick to my technical endeavour, that would mean way too little. It may come as some sort of impoverishment, as some sort of dwindling of one’s own self. There were years when I didn’t write anything. Between 1996 and 1999 I had to prepare for some exams in mathematics, that were very tough. It was very hard, very tough, I didn’t write anything for three good years. One of the most difficult exams was in May 1999. I was 28 and I suspected myself of being unable to memorize anything. Three days before that exam I started writing again. It was like a moment of liberation, of necessary liberation. We need to be wholesome and in order to be wholesome, we need literature.”

The CopyRo Prize that Bogdan Suceava received in 2002 for the volume “The Empire of Tardy Generals and Other Histories”, the Bucharest Writers’ Association’s Prize for Fiction, awarded for his novel “Miruna, a Tale” and the Literary Network’s 1st prize for “The Night When Someone Died for You” are some of the prizes which reward Bogan Suceava’s literary activity. (Translated by C. Mateescu & E. Nasta)

13 January 2018
Poet Claudiu Komartin

In 2005, Claudiu Komartin published “The Domestic Circus”, winning the “Romanian Academy Prize” for poetry, at an early age. The following volumes “A Season in Berceni” issued in 2009 and “Cobalt” in 2013 confirmed Claudiu Komartin’s talent and imposed him as one of the leaders of the 2000 generation. Komartin has shot to fame not only through his poetry but also through an intense publishing and translating activity. “The Max Blecher Publishing House”, the editorial project that Komartin initiated and almost fully supported took shape in 2010, as an extension of the “Blecher Institute” contemporary literature workshop, with the declared aim of promoting contemporary Romanian literature, mainly books by less known writers, who are not among the most praised names by the editorial and publishing system.

Claudiu Komartin has further details: “What we had in mind from the very beginning was to build up a community. This community is made up of writers, particularly poets, who are not glorious names of the present, and of readers. We wanted people to have the feeling that they belong to the same place and share the same story. It was an integrating story. We started with this reading club in 2009. It developed unexpectedly well, because back then, when I was only 26 years old, I didn’t think I would ever achieve this. And later on, we set up the publishing house. My intention was to bring over valuable people and I wanted them to feel good here, not to be left with the impression that they are authors and that’s all, as it usually happens. Publishers usually leave them the impression they should be satisfied with the invitation and feel privileged that their work is brought out by a well- known publishing house. This is not enough to me, the more so as I see that at some publishing houses, some writers have their volumes published, but those books are almost invisible, they are not properly advertised or promoted. Those big publishing houses, in spite of having the necessary promotion and marketing instruments, do not properly deal with the books, because the authors are not famous writers. It is true that there are not many famous authors in Romania nowadays, or there are only few, such as Mircea Cărtărescu and Ana Blandiana. But undoubtedly, there are 15-20 valuable and very valuable writers, that only hundreds or thousands of people have heard of or are familiar with their works, such as Octavian Soviany, Radu Aldulescu, Mariana Codruţ and Nichita Danilov, who are well-known only by a few knowledgeable people.”

In other works, like any young talent, Claudiu Komartin also has a rebel personality and the wish to bring many Romanian contemporary poets from underground into mainstream literature. He will tell us now how he achieves this: “What we can guarantee is that the books we bring out will be taken to all poetry festivals across the country, to the main book fairs, that they will be sent to literary critics whose area of interest is contemporary literature and who write about this. According to our minimal exigency, all those requirements should be met. Beyond that, we travel extensively across the country. We enter not only bookstores and libraries, but also restaurants and other unconventional locations. We’ve tried to reach a public that is not necessarily made up of men of letters and connoisseurs. We wanted and we managed to reach some people who happened to be there, in the places we visited and who had never before thought that contemporary literature could be like that, the way we write it and publish it. “

Just as the Max Blecher Publishing House emerged as an extension of a literary circle, the literary review Poesis International is an extension of the publishing house. Poet Claudiu Komartin has more: “The project started taking shape in the spring of 2010, in the northern Romanian city of Satu-Mare. Some poets, writers and translators were invited there by a local poet, Dumitru Păcuraru, who actually had the idea and shared it with us. The project was coordinated by Mr Pacuraru for three years, and then I took over from him. It was another of my crazy ideas, because I was not confident at all that it would work out, in the absence of any financing. However, we worked everything out and, three years on, the project is being developed properly. The declared aim of the magazine has from the very beginning been to publish extensively foreign contemporary literature, but not necessarily literature that is being written right now, but in the past 50-60 years and has been translated into Romanian. We’ve mainly thought about publishing poetry, but also prose and essays. The bottom line has been to present experiences from linguistic and cultural areas which are very different from ours, in order to be able to take a comparative look and realise where we stand. The project has gained ground and we are now publishing poetry from some 20 foreign countries, from the US to Central and Eastern Europe.”

The Blecher Institute, the literary circle which gave an impetus to a group of people to set up the publishing house which is now run by Claudiu Komartin, continues its activity, with many contemporary poets- not necessarily the 2000 generation-reading out their works there.

26 August 2017
Bucharest in Literature. Six Possible Readings of the City

Andreea Rasuceanu’s new book, “Bucharest in Literature. Six Possible Readings of the City” is a sort of experiment on the many forms of relation between the city and its literary projection, between the perception of the author and that of the reader, between the various interior maps and the different ways of reading the urban landscape. According to writer and literary critic Cornel Ungureanu, “Andreea Rasuceanu offers an image of Bucharest that formed as a result of the reading of several novels written by authors that define the current Romanian type of writing.

The readings proposed by this book anticipate in fact a new research method, that of geocriticism”. Here is critic Andreea Rasuceanu herself: “What I focused on in my book was the idea of the city itself. The city as a construction, the city as a fascinating object, the city as our second body that cannot be ignored. This is what I started from, so the idea of literary geography captivated me from the very beginning. As I mentioned in the book’s foreword, I started off having two goals in mind. On the one hand, to make the readers who are passionate about contemporary literature, which I have been focusing on lately, to actually see the city and have a different perspective on it, filtered with the help of these texts. On the other hand, I wanted to familiarize the readers who are passionate only about the history of this city, with the writings of these contemporary writers. So this was my intention, to offer a 2-type reading of the city, one via literature and one that is in fact a journey through literature via these literary cities.”

“Bucharest in Literature. Six Possible Readings of the City” speaks about the image of the city as it appears in the works of 6 writers from different generations. In the books of Mircea Cărtărescu, Gabriela Adameşteanu, Stelian Tănase, Simona Sora, Filip Florian and Ioana Pârvulescu, Bucharest becomes a character. Each chapter includes an interview, which is uncontested evidence pointing to the similarities and differences between the critic’s outer perspective and the way in which the writer experiences his or her relation with the city.

Here is Andreea Răsuceanu at the microphone with more: “I also found this relation interesting, between writers and the space they describe. They describe the contemporary space, the space that they are living in, which they see and experience every day or the space of past ages. I noticed that Gabriela Adameşteanu makes very ample descriptions of Bucharest as it was before 1989, and her descriptions could be good study material for anthropologists, for those who want to see what Bucharest was like back in the 1970s or 1980s. Her descriptions of Bucharest are very detailed. I discovered in Gabriela Adameşteanu’s prose a very sensory city, reconstituted through all sorts of visual, sound and tactile clues. Her characters are perfectly connected to the rhythm of the city, to its speed, to what’s going on outside, which is a projection of what’s going on inside. Likewise, the urban landscape has a very big impact on the inner life of characters.”

“If you say literary Bucharest you say Mircea Cartarescu. He managed to impose a certain image of Bucharest, an unmistakable one, as he is the Romanian writer most concerned about the image of this city. Any literary emblem of the literary Bucharest should first and foremost contain emblematic phrases of Cartarescu’s prose about the alter-ego city, the body-city or the city as an inferred space, discovered, tapped by means of senses, a city of mythical addresses”, as Andreea Rasuceanu put it.

“I have allotted the largest space in the book to Mircea Cartarescu but without premeditating it. ‘Solenoid’ appeared at a moment when I was preparing to complete the book, so it just happened. I read the book and I realized that it completed that image of Bucharest, which first appeared in another book by Cartarescu, ‘Orbitor’ (Blinding). The city has been given immense coverage in his books; we have the most spectacular city here where various facets of this city are presented; it’s an extension of the narrator’s body, an anatomic structure where the demolition of a building is tantamount to removing a vital organ. On the other hand, an entirely original image is the image of the alter-ego city. It’s an extraordinary metaphor that begins the book ‘Blinding’, with little Mircea in his now famous apartment on ‘Stefan cel Mare’ street who sees his reflection in the window, a reflection that is juxtaposed to the image of the city. This image is used by Mircea Cartarescu throughout the book in different guises. The city becomes a text, one that is written by the narrator at that very moment.”

“The six chapters of the book turn Bucharest into one of the great post-modern cities. It becomes readable and reveals itself to us as a passionate city, deserving of our love. It comes to us in an anthropomorphic guise and we are able to explore its magic core through a palimpsest, as a character that takes shape through the subjective feelings of other characters” — this is how Tania Radu describes the book “Bucharest in Literature. Six Possible Readings of the City”.

6 May 2017
Writer Vasile Voiculescu

Born in November 1884 in Buzau County, writer Vasile Voiculescu, who passed away in April 1963, gained literary recognition due to his religious poetry and fantasy fiction. He was also one of the iconic figures of the anti-communist resistance, being imprisoned for his religious beliefs. A keen literature lover but also a professional medical doctor, Vasile Voiculescu never fully gave up all of his passions. While he made his literary debut in 1916 with the volume “Poetry”, Vasile Voiculescu continued to practice military medicine over 1917-1918 during the Great War. Once peace was restored, he continued to practice medicine, first as a district physician in Bucharest, then within the Crown Property Agency in 1920. All this time he continued to publish poetry as well as theatre plays, making a name for himself amidst the city’s literary circles. Seen by many a religious and traditionalist poet, Voiculescu stunned his contemporary peers by switching to fantasy fiction of folk influence, which was rather a disregarded literary current in Romania at the time.

Here is historian and literary critic Florentin Popescu talking about this preference: “His prose was a surprise to many people. Writers would gather at Barbu Slatineanu’s place, who was a collector of ceramics and discs. His house was located in the Uranus-Izvor neighborhood, which was later demolished. Many writers did readings there, including Voiculescu, who read his fantastic stories. Many critics were very enthusiastic about his work, although Voiculescu did not realize at first how valuable it really was. He thought it had just been a game turned into stories.”

The literary value of those fantastic stories were not just a game and, as a result of their appreciation, as of 1930 he started doing the weekly show “Village Time” (Ora satului) on Radio Romania. Then, in 1933 he became a literary advisor at the Romanian Radio Broadcasting Corporation and then director of the literary programme, a position that he held until 1945.

Here is Florentin Popescu again recalling moments from Vasile Voiculescu’s radio activity: “He played a very important role at the Radio. He wrote a feature giving medical advice to people in the countryside; those features were included in a book titled “All Remedies at Hand” published in 1935, actually the first book of homeopathy in Romania. He was happy to support young people. At a certain point, young lady poet Magda Isanos joined him in the studio. She was greatly appreciated later on, but unfortunately, she died very young and Voiculescu deplored her death. Although sometimes he was bored and annoyed by phone calls and ambitious people, he had the ability and diplomacy to accept and air only valuable things.”

After 1944, Vasile Voiculescu took part in the meetings of a literature circle called “Rugul Aprins” (Burning Pyre). The group was made up of intellectuals and culture figures of strong Christian Orthodox faith, and would convene at the Antim Monastery in Bucharest. Unfortunately, the communist authorities dismantled it and imprisoned its members.

Vasile Voiculescu was also sent to prison, and his works were banned. Here is Florentin Popescu with more details: “His writings were analysed especially after his death and his rehabilitation, because as everybody knows he was unjustly incarcerated for 4 years. He was 73 when he was imprisoned, and when he got out his body was ravaged. There are some shattering testimonies made by his children, with regard to his state when he came out of prison. It was the year 1958, a bleak period in history, when intellectuals, scientists, officers were thrown behind bars indiscriminately. One of the reasons he was imprisoned had to do with his religious beliefs, but the indictment also made reference to a number of poems in which the communist activists of the time insisted they had identified political undertones indicating that the poet was criticizing the Soviet Union.”

Released from prison in 1962, Vasile Voiculescu only survived for another year. His well-known poetry volume “The last sonnets of Shakespeare in Imaginary Translation by V. Voiculescu” as well as the phantasy novel “Zahei the Blind” were published posthumously.

6 May 2017
The Bucharest International Literature Festival

The Bucharest International Literature Festival was a roundup edition and included two public reading and debates sessions, hosted by the Romanian Peasant Museum and an event dedicated to students and staged jointly with the Department of Communication Sciences with the Bucharest’s Faculty of Letters.

At the debut evening of public readings and debates at the Peasant Club , literature lovers had the chance to meet prose writers Irina Teodorescu, Veronica D. Niculescu, Lavinia Branişte and Irina Georgescu Groza.

Translator and writer Veronica D. Niculescu tells us how she got round to writing Heading towards valleys of jade and darnel ryegrass, a novel brought out by Polirom Publishes in 2016. This is the second volume that Veronica D. Niculescu published in 2016, after Hybernalia, a sequel of Animal Symphony, with both volumes being published by the Casa de Pariuri Literare.

Veronica D. Niculescu: ”It is a volume I had been working on for about three years and I can say it all started as a game. It is a story of a girl writing a book. And that character writes a book that is different from the kind of book I would write. I chose this strategy as I have always wanted the book that I write to include the book of a character as well. Now, getting back to the topic of our meeting, I do hope the day comes when one of my books includes poems written by a male character, or by an animal character. Getting back to the story written by the girl, it is a rhyming fairy tale, which, when I completed, I didn’t even know it would be embedded in this volume. And it was only after I finished writing this fairy tale that I realized I wanted the volume to be the story of that girl. And that’s exactly how I sketched my character, starting off from the rhyming fairytale.”

After her poetry debut, she published two short fiction volumes, and a childrens book. Lavinia Braniste, who published Interior Zero for Polirom this year, told us how she came to write fiction: “Ive had a passion for short fiction for a long time now, and I still have it. At first I designed this volume as a short fiction volume as well, but the fragments came to connect to each other more than I imagined in the beginning, and I decided to keep it like that. In short, it is a story that sprang to my mind while I was having an on-line chat with a friend who is a poet, Vasile Leac, who was in Germany, picking leek and pumpkins. I was envious of his exotic experience, and I suspected he would write about it. In fact, the motto of the book comes from this conversation, it relates to a question asked by Vasile Leac: “Arent we supposed to understand life?” The way in which he phrased the question was something I liked, so I decided to write a book about how we dont understand life, because I was myself in a situation where I seemed to be fine, but I was terrified at the idea that that was what fine looks like. And I find it hard to understand if I was supposed to wish for something else or not.”

The novel The Curse of the Moustachioed Robber by Irina Teodorescu won in France the Andre Dubreuil award for a debut novel. The Romanian language edition was published by Polirom this year, translated by Madalina Vatcu: “In France the novel was received very well by the press and the critics. However, we also had reactions from the French readers, which could get lost in the multitude of Romanian names that the readers are not used to. However, these characters could exist anywhere, because it is about a place in Eastern Europe, it is not specified that the action takes place in Romania; the names of the characters are the only clues towards this.”

Irina Georgescu Groza, attending the International Literature Festival in Bucharest, gave a lecture on her debut book, published by Casa de Pariuri Literare, a short fiction book entitled Beyond the Windows. Here she is, talking about getting back to writing: “The need to write returned to me when I lived for a time in Belgium with my family. It could also have been because I didnt have friends and had lots of time, and didnt feel attracted by work. Previously I had gotten to the point where I was writing even at work, Romanian language literature, and I think my Flemish boss thought those long e-mails were part of my work for the corporation. At some point, when I got back to Romania, I decided it was time to do what I liked doing, meaning writing. I found a great creative writing course held by the Short Story Magazine, a short fiction course. I started to love fiction, even though I had written two novels, I met writers I knew, I read a lot, and started writing short fiction. I forgot about economic growth, which weighed heavily on my mind when I was working at the corporation in Belgium.”

The open readings from the books recently published by the above-mentioned writers were followed on the first evening of the International Literature Festival in Bucharest by a debate with the topic “About feminine writing: is there feminine writing or is this just an easy label for literary criticism and literary journalism?”

7 January 2017
The Bucharest International Literature Festival

The Bucharest International Literature Festival was a roundup edition and included two public reading and debates sessions, hosted by the Romanian Peasant Museum and an event dedicated to students and staged jointly with the Department of Communication Sciences with the Bucharest’s Faculty of Letters.

At the debut evening of public readings and debates at the Peasant Club , literature lovers had the chance to meet prose writers Irina Teodorescu, Veronica D. Niculescu, Lavinia Branişte and Irina Georgescu Groza.

Translator and writer Veronica D. Niculescu tells us how she got round to writing Heading towards valleys of jade and darnel ryegrass, a novel brought out by Polirom Publishes in 2016. This is the second volume that Veronica D. Niculescu published in 2016, after Hybernalia, a sequel of Animal Symphony, with both volumes being published by the Casa de Pariuri Literare.

Veronica D. Niculescu: ”It is a volume I had been working on for about three years and I can say it all started as a game. It is a story of a girl writing a book. And that character writes a book that is different from the kind of book I would write. I chose this strategy as I have always wanted the book that I write to include the book of a character as well. Now, getting back to the topic of our meeting, I do hope the day comes when one of my books includes poems written by a male character, or by an animal character. Getting back to the story written by the girl, it is a rhyming fairy tale, which, when I completed, I didn’t even know it would be embedded in this volume. And it was only after I finished writing this fairy tale that I realized I wanted the volume to be the story of that girl. And that’s exactly how I sketched my character, starting off from the rhyming fairytale.”

After her poetry debut, she published two short fiction volumes, and a childrens book. Lavinia Braniste, who published Interior Zero for Polirom this year, told us how she came to write fiction: “Ive had a passion for short fiction for a long time now, and I still have it. At first I designed this volume as a short fiction volume as well, but the fragments came to connect to each other more than I imagined in the beginning, and I decided to keep it like that. In short, it is a story that sprang to my mind while I was having an on-line chat with a friend who is a poet, Vasile Leac, who was in Germany, picking leek and pumpkins. I was envious of his exotic experience, and I suspected he would write about it. In fact, the motto of the book comes from this conversation, it relates to a question asked by Vasile Leac: “Arent we supposed to understand life?” The way in which he phrased the question was something I liked, so I decided to write a book about how we dont understand life, because I was myself in a situation where I seemed to be fine, but I was terrified at the idea that that was what fine looks like. And I find it hard to understand if I was supposed to wish for something else or not.”

The novel The Curse of the Moustachioed Robber by Irina Teodorescu won in France the Andre Dubreuil award for a debut novel. The Romanian language edition was published by Polirom this year, translated by Madalina Vatcu: “In France the novel was received very well by the press and the critics. However, we also had reactions from the French readers, which could get lost in the multitude of Romanian names that the readers are not used to. However, these characters could exist anywhere, because it is about a place in Eastern Europe, it is not specified that the action takes place in Romania; the names of the characters are the only clues towards this.”

Irina Georgescu Groza, attending the International Literature Festival in Bucharest, gave a lecture on her debut book, published by Casa de Pariuri Literare, a short fiction book entitled Beyond the Windows. Here she is, talking about getting back to writing: “The need to write returned to me when I lived for a time in Belgium with my family. It could also have been because I didnt have friends and had lots of time, and didnt feel attracted by work. Previously I had gotten to the point where I was writing even at work, Romanian language literature, and I think my Flemish boss thought those long e-mails were part of my work for the corporation. At some point, when I got back to Romania, I decided it was time to do what I liked doing, meaning writing. I found a great creative writing course held by the Short Story Magazine, a short fiction course. I started to love fiction, even though I had written two novels, I met writers I knew, I read a lot, and started writing short fiction. I forgot about economic growth, which weighed heavily on my mind when I was working at the corporation in Belgium.”

The open readings from the books recently published by the above-mentioned writers were followed on the first evening of the International Literature Festival in Bucharest by a debate with the topic “About feminine writing: is there feminine writing or is this just an easy label for literary criticism and literary journalism?”

7 January 2017
The ”Gellu Naum” Festival at its first edition

For two days running, the most notable contemporary Romanian poets got together in Bucharest and Comana to pay homage to Europes last great surrealist poet and prose writer. Through the two sessions, organizers sought to initiate a dialogue between different creation spaces and ages, with the purpose of putting to good use the heritage of Romanian literature and its recent written culture.

Apart from the sessions where guest poets read from their own work, the authors were invited to give personal answers to the question ‘How did I get to know Gellu Naum?, by providing recollections, memories, sketches and ideas, all revolving around the celebrated surrealist poet Gellu Naum. The host of the event, writer Simona Popescu, is the author of two volumes entitled “On Surrealism and Gellu Naum and “Clava. Critifiction with Gellu Naum. The second volume, which was brought out a few years after the first one, included a series of critical essays.

Simona Popescu has said, quote “Being close to Gellu Naum for many years, that certain sense of existential dignity which is his poetrys vital principle became increasingly clear to me. He had a visceral need for purity and for that he was fiercely uncompromising with himself, and then with the others, he tried not to mingle with them, with their mistakes. His own errors caused him great suffering in (…) Being wrong meant to him straying away from the “core of poetic existence. The slightest instance of straying away from what he called principles brought with it imbalance, opacity, hostility.

Simona Popescu also said that she had the idea of staging the festival in late 2015, when the birth centenary of Gellu Naum was commemorated (he was born on August 1, 1915), all the more so since Gellu Naums writings “created solidarity. Given that for their most part critics have rated Gellu Naum as Europes last great surrealist poet, we asked Simona Popescu if surrealism was something we could still speak of, today.

Simona Popescu: Surrealism does exist, there are surrealist poets who write even to this day, there are very interesting groups all over the world. For the following editions of the festival, I would like to be able to bring over members of the surrealist group in London, of the Swedish group and also surrealists in Prague. Around the world, there are poets who present themselves as being surrealists. So surrealism continues to exist in literature as well. Therefore, apart from literature and prejudices, surrealism is immortal, just like Romanticism is immortal, and in much the same way as all literary trends are immortal. We are all surrealists in our own way, at least when we dream. When we dream, all of us are surrealists, just as we are – whether we like it or not –romantics, postmodern and classics. And these things are given a name, from time to time. Surrealism has always existed, but only in the 1930s it was labeled as such, when it was conceptualized by the French surrealists who had borrowed the concept from Apollinaire. And here we are today, still speaking about surrealism, and we shall speak about it till the end of the world.

“Poetry is a form of superior dissatisfaction. It questions principles, systems, and hierarchies, at the same time rejecting vulgarity with its increasingly human face. While the unhappy people of this world were looking for those ‘terrible storms they could measure their strength against, ‘the others resorted to the bracing feeling of confidence offered by the sentries, overbidding their perspectives, feeding themselves at their convenience, to quote a fragment from My Exhausted Father, Simona Popescu writes.

One of the guest poets in the Gellu Naum Festival was Nora Iuga, whose work critics described as being related to surrealism from her very first volume: “I am absolutely convinced that surrealists are born just like that, as surrealists. What I mean is that I dont believe that a surrealist poet could appear as the result of a creative writing course. Its true, poet Miron Radu Paraschivescu is the one who wrote the foreword to my debut book, saying that there is a similarity between me and Gellu Naum. Since then, such comparisons have not been really made in Romania. I was not really part of the Gellu Naums famous group of literary friends. I met Gellu Naum later, because his writings could not be found during the Stalinist period. I found out about the existence of this word, ‘surrealism, quite late, in the mid 1960s. Actually, it was then that I read the first poem by Gellu Naum, called Athanor. I read it and I felt as if I was electrocuted, perplexed, because I did not understand much, but I loved it. I had never read anything like that in my whole life and I had no idea that anybody could think or write like that, without apparent meaning, but with such vibrant beauty and feeling of the unexpected. To me, it was the moment when I became aware that I usually preferred the intangible, that is something that resembles nothing else and what remains incomprehensible, because this is where the great mystery lies. And the great mystery is what dominates our lives.

7 October 2016
Women Writers in the Public Sphere

PEN Club Romania staged a debate themed “Women in the Public Sphere. The event was hosted in spring by the Humanitas Cismigiu Bookshop in Romanias capital city Bucharest. Among the guests were president of the PEN Club Romania, writer Magda Carneci, writers, journalist and translators Svetlana Cârstean, Adina Diniţoiu, Ioana Bâldea Constantinescu and writer, translator and columnist Bogdan Ghiu.

Starting from the debate launched by PEN Club, we invited Svetlana Cârstean and Adina Diniţoiu to dwell upon the condition and opportunities of women writers in the Romanian public space. Svetlana Cârstean is an award-winning poet, since her volumes Vise Flower, brought out by the Cartea Romaneasca Publishers in 2008 and “Gravity, issued by the Trei Publishers in 2015, were nominated for awards offered by Radio Romanias Culture Channel and the Cultural Observer magazine.

Adina Dinitoiu is a literary critic, cultural journalist and translator from French. She is also an editor with the Cultural Observer magazine and a regular contributor to Romania Literara, Dilema Veche, Dilemateca, as well as to Radio Romanians Culture Channel. Adina Dinitoiu is the author of a book on the late novelist Mircea Nedelciu, entitled “Mircea Nedelcius fiction. The Powers of literature against politics and death, published by Tracus Arte Publishers in Bucharest, in 2011.

We started by asking the two guests about their take on their status as women writers.

Svetlana Carstean: I have in mind an article published in Scottish PEN that Ive read recently, and which still obsesses me, as there I found some relevant data. In short, using data and quotations, the woman author of the article reached the conclusion that the course of action a man usually takes is representative for humankind, while a womans actions are representative only for women. In other words, everything men write is representative for the entire humankind, while what we, women, write remains representative only for women. The articles author also brought up a specific case – that of a writer who sent a hundred email messages to various editors, sending the same manuscript to all of them. Fifty messages were emailed using her own name, while for fifty others she used a mans name. As a woman author, she received seven replies, while in the latter case she got seventeen replies. Its up to you to judge if such a case is relevant or not.

And here is what our second guest Adina Dinitoiu told us on the same topic:

Adina Dinitoiu: As a rule, literary criticism is an area of power in the sphere of literature as literary critics, through the discourse they have on literature, by means of which they validate or invalidate a text, perform an act of cultural power, securing for themselves a place in literary hierarchy. I made my debut with the innocence of someone who writes about literature, who does criticism, without having her gender identity in mind. At that time I tried to ignore the gender issue, I thought it was normal to do that, it was a step closer to having a normal literary and critical discourse. I really want us to be able to speak normally, as women and men, without us women having to fight for a cause, without us feeling marginalized in a public discourse, without us feeling marginalized.“

Adina Dinitoiu also spoke about the loss of innocence right after her debut:

Adina Dinitoiu: After the debut, I realized it was not that simple. And I had no choice other than to become aware of my gender identity. I realized I am a woman, not only a literary critic, and that this is something more difficult that I would have imagined. And what I felt then was not that I was necessarily being marginalized, I also became aware I was a literary critic, also having a womans identity, which complicated things in the public sphere of ideas, especially in Romania, which is a rather traditional country. The other day I read that in 2015, according to a European gender equality index, Romania was bottom of the table. And this is a study conducted at European level. The conclusions pointed to the fact that the European Union in its entirety was only halfway through that struggle for gender affirmation, for a balanced representation of men and women in the public sphere. So at the moment I need to fight more like a woman, so that my discourse may be heard.

With more on the gender affirmation issue, here is Svetlana Carstean once again:

Svetlana Carstean: I think we dont have to be marginalized. Labeling somebody is just enough, since it is a very subtle way, even an insidious one, I daresay, to avoid being marginalized overtly, against which it is much more simple to fight or point your finger at. Its all about labeling and about preconception, concepts you operate with, oftentimes stemming from the sphere of literary criticism, which is an area of power.

As it is still in its infancy, the discussion remains open. In her book, “The Lady Writers Divan, Mihaela Ursa says, quote: “It is important to see whether, from the viewpoint of self-projection, women writers from Romania see themselves in an harmonious or antagonistic manner and especially if they think it is necessary to further explore the relationship between their public and private life, between the artistic creation and domestic life – these, as we shall see, are relationships with endless complications and nuances.

13 August 2016
Bucharest International Literature Festival

The inaugural evening of the Bucharest International Literature Festival, an early December event hosted by the Peasant Club in Bucharest, started off from one of Israeli writer Zeruya Shalev’s novels, “Husband and Wife”, a book whose Romanian version was brought out by the Polirom Publishers. “Noted for her debut novel, Love Life, Israeli native Shalev plays confidently with the themes of jealousy, accumulated grievances, and resentments,” Library Journal writes. And Publishers Weekly also makes mention of Zeruya Shalev’s performance. ”Shalev has created a novel entirely devoid of standard dialogue, choosing instead to convey snatches of conversation, arguments and whispers of love in stream-of-consciousness prose.” In the novel, characters Udi and Naama are two people who had been growing side by side, yet somewhere along their journey communication between them seems to have broken down, and their life together, jointly with their daughter Noga is now torn by jealousy, fury and guilt. Little by little it turns out that the entire foundation their marriage had been built upon was a very frail one, and the image of their idyllic teenage love was just an illuson.

The four guests in the Festival, two writers couples, Zeruya Shalev and Ayal Megged from Israel and Cecilia Stefanescu and Florin Iaru from Romania, respectively, were actually asked, among other things, why being unhappy has a more powerful creative potential than being happy. It was also a couple who moderated the discussion, poet Adela Greceanu and journalist Matei Martin. Ayal Megged is the recipient of a string of literary prizes, including the Macmillan prize for fiction. He is a journalist, a poet, a prose writer, and also a teacher of creative writing.

In writer Cecilia Stefanescus books, being unhappy seems to be more frequent than being happy.

“Dramatic situations engender conflict and enjoy diving into these conflicts. Unhappy circumstances force you to take out all your masks. I did not give up on all my illusions, but I did let go of the illusion that happiness lasts. Happiness is a split second, it does not last. We would become unhealthy, we would suffer terribly if we were happy forever.”

Writer Florin Iaru shares that opinion. In writing, being unhappy is more productive than being happy.

“It’s a matter of grammar. In grammar, happiness is restrictive, it only has adjectives, it only has qualities. We pursue happiness, whatever the costs. However, happiness is static, it lacks conflict, so it cannot possibly develop a dramatic nucleus. Secondly, readers are consumers of unhappiness. It makes them happy, it gives them aesthetic satisfaction. So if readers look for unhappiness, writing about it pays off, and authors know that all to well.”

The talk further developed into no less interesting questions. What are the advantages of a marriage between writers? To what extent is there admiration, to what extent is there understanding, how much of that is competition or envy, in a couple where both members are writers? What traumas can literature bring to a marriage?

The Bucharest International Literature Festival gave literature lovers from Bucharest the opportunity to meet notable personalities in European literature today, coming from countries such as Great Britain, Israel, Croatia, Hungary, Serbia, Jamaica and Romania.

4 October 2014
Writer Marin Preda

Imposed forcibly in Romania in the late 1940s, the communist regime changed everything, including the arts, in line with its hard line socialist realism and Proletkult (proletarian culture). Literature in particular had to show the victory of peasants and industrial workers, in their class struggle against the bourgeoisie and the landed gentry. A writer would have to subscribe to this ideology to see his work into print. It is no wonder that the quality of printed works plummeted. However, even in this barren landscape, one particular writer emerged suddenly as an exception, restoring hope in Romanian literature. The name of the writer was Marin Preda, born in a poor village in Teleorman County in 1922. He would have turned 92 on August 5th. Literary historian and critic Ion Bogdan Lefter told us more about Marin Preda’s background:

“He came from a fairly poor peasant family, even though this is debatable. We know from his clan biography ‘Morometii’ that his parents owned land and farm animals, so they belonged to the peasantry owning land, to what the communists dubbed ‘kulaks’. Preda did not have much of a higher education. He graduated a teaching college, and, during the war, when he was 18 or 20, he came to Bucharest. In order to survive, he worked in the press, and by 1944, at the age of 22, he was still working in that field.”

Marin Preda’s early writing, rooted in the world of the village, where the writer came from, resonated with the pervasive regime’s imposed ideology. Thanks to that, the writer quickly joined the cultural circles cultivated by the communist authorities. The writer knew when to make concessions and when to follow his own path in his published texts. Here is Ion Bogdan Lefter once again:

“Marin Preda, with his life and family experience, was able to also write whatever he wanted, and to see that it fitted what was required of him. In his youth, Marin Preda wrote about the rural world with no political implications, but he also wrote a few Proletkult texts about the world of the village, which do not stand up to a purely aesthetic analysis. However, in Preda’s defence, he did not write many such texts, and one could separate them from the rest of his work. The two texts, on rural topics, were written between 1949 and 1952, during the early stage of Romanian Stalinism. Then follows the first thaw in Moscow, after Stalin’s death in 1953. Preda takes advantage of this period, and in 1955 he published the first volume of ‘Morometii’, a masterpiece which, in appearance, fits the era’s ideological standards, by the fact that it dealt with peasants and their abrasive relationship with the pre-communist authorities. Beyond that, however, Preda ignored the prescriptions of the official propaganda, and wrote an extraordinary novel about the life of peasants of the south of Romania.”

The fame that the semi-autobiographic novel “Morometii” brought Preda secured him a permanent place in Romanian literature, as well as within the ranks of artists favoured by the regime. He became a corresponding member of the Romanian Academy, head of one of the most important publishing houses in the country, and a deputy in the National Assembly. Sheltered by these positions, he continued to write groundbreaking novels for that time. In 1980, he published his three-volume novel ‘The Most Beloved of Men’, which, according to Lefter, puts into question the entirety of the communist regime. That same year, Marin Preda passed away, on May 16.

“The murky circumstances of his death could only be shed light upon if the archives of the former Securitate yielded documents showing clearly that he was rubbed out, but there isn’t enough evidence to support that. It may have been an accident. It’s not secret that he was having a hard time, drinking a lot, and his death might have been accidental. However, the death of such extraordinary man was, at the time, quite shocking. He was not that old. He died before turning 58.”

Marin Preda’s literary standing is uncontested, but his relationship to the regime is still up for debate, and any clear image of it is dependant on a possible emergence of documents from the archives of the former regime.

9 August 2014