The latest addition to my website is Panait Istrati‘s Les Chardons du Baragan (The Thistles of the Baragan). The novel is set in the very inhospitable region of Romania called Bărăgan, known for its thistles. The poor people struggle to make a living there, We follow the story of Mataké, who is a boy for … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Cecilia Stefanescu‘s Intrarea soarelui (Sun Alley). Emi and Sal are twelve year olds. Neither has a sibling. They meet and fall for one another but are, of course, too young to do anything about it. We follow their growing love and passion. However his parents do not approve … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Filip Florian‘s Degete mici (Little Fingers). The basic story involves an archaeological dig of a Roman fort. About 300 feet from the dig, a horde of seemingly modern bones is found. It is immediately suspected that they are the bones of victims from a massacre by the communists … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Gellu Naum‘s Zenobia (Zenobia ). Naum was a Surrealist poet and this is very much a Surrealist poet’s novel. Our hero is called Gellu Naum. While visiting Mr Sima in the country in the depths of winter, he meets and immediately falls in love with Zenobia, the name … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Dumitru Tsepeneag‘s Pigeon vole (Pigeon Post) . This is a witty and clever post-modernist novel, written in French and set in Paris. An unnamed author, who may not be the author who is, in fact, another character created by the narrator and who plays chess is trying to … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Ioana Pârvulescu‘s Viața începe vineri (Life Begins On Friday). This is an unusual Romanian novel as it is not grim. A coachman in Bucharest in December 1897 finds, separately, two men in the snow. The first, Dan Kretzu/Crețu, is disorientated and, for the course of the book, does … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Dan Lungu‘s Raiul găinilor [Heaven for Chickens]. The novel is set in Acadia Street, during the post-Nicolae Ceaușescu era. Most of the people that live there are retired and not very well-off. The novel is a satire on both modern Romania and on these people, who drink a … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Liviu Rebreanu‘s Pădurea spânzuraților (Forest of the Hanged). Our hero is Apostol Bologa. He is ethnically Romanian – his father had been imprisoned for his role in drawing up a memorandum of the grievances of the Romanians in Transylvania which, till 1918, was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Zaharia Stancu‘s Desculț (Barefoot). We follow Darie, a young peasant boy from the beginning of the 20th century to World War I. However, the main focus of the novel is the sufferings of the Romanian peasants. The peasants are continually victims – of the boyars (rich landowners) and … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Maria Maïlat‘s La cuisse de Kafka [Kafka’s Thigh]. This is a semi-autobiographical novel. Her heroine is called Mina Baïlar. She is born in Transylvania, part Jewish, and has a not particularly easy childhood. However,she becomes first a gymnast and then a writer but the Romanian authorities ban her … Read more