The latest addition to my website is Dumitru Tsepeneag‘s La belle Roumaine (La Belle Roumaine). This is another totally anarchic and gloriously funny novel from Tsepeneag. The eponymous beautiful Romanian woman is Ana or maybe she is Anne or Aneta or Anette or Hannah. She might be a doctor or a nurse or she might be a prostitute. She might be Jewish or she might not. Her father may have been killed at Auschwitz or he may have been a collaborator. We follow her round Europe, particularly in Berlin and Paris, where she has a succession of lovers, each one of whom is given a different story about her life and her background. Is she working for Ceaușescu’s secret service? Was she attacked on the metro? How does she earn her money? What languages does she really speak and is she really Romanian? The other characters never learn the truth and nor do we – if there is a truth. It is very funny, totally chaotic and another wonderful book from Tsepeneag which Dalkey Archive Press has brought us.