Romanian literature – from Guardian

The cycle Ingeniosul bine temperat (The Well-tempered Virtuoso) by Mircea Horia Simionescu, made of 4 parts: Bibliografia generala (General Bibliography), Dictionar onomastic (Dictionary of Names), Breviarul (Breviary)- Historia Calamitatum and Toxicologia (Toxicology) - a multi-structured, ironical and monstruous Borgesian metafiction (although, at the time it was written, MHS had never heard of postmodernism or read Borges.) Unfortunately, it is very difficult to translate, being full of cultural and social references. But this is just one of MHS's many books of prose. Easier to understand would be, for example, the novel Redingota (The Rendingote), a sort of rewriting of Thomas Mann's Death in Venice.

The trilogy Orbitor by Mircea Cartarescu (Aripa stinga, Corpul, Aripa dreapta /The Left Wing, The Body, The Right Wing), recently concluded, is a baroque novel reminding of Pynchon, Kafka and Sabato.

Teodosie cel Mic (Teodosie the Little) by Razvan Radulescu, fantasy metafiction about losing the ideals of childhood.

Fata din casa vagon (The Girl from the Wagon-house), by Ana-Maria Sandu, a "what if" novel about abortion - "what if you weren't born?"

Degete mici (Small Fingers), by Filip Florian, a novel in the style of magical realism, about the discovery of a mass burial pit.

Cum mi-am petrecut vacanta de vara (What I did in the Summer Holidays), by T.O.Bobe, a panorama of the Romanian society at the beginning of the XXIst century seen trough the eyes of a 10-year-old psychotic child.

Stefan Agopian with his historical fictions Sara, Tobit, Tache de catifea (Velvet Tache). Unfortunately, the style using a very archaical and poetical language makes them very difficult to translate.

Ovidiu Verdes, Muzici si faze (Musics and Tricks), about the teenagers' rush in the Communist years of the 80s to find the newest Western songs.

M. Bleher, Intimplari in irealitatea imediata (Events of the Immediate Irreality), an onirical and Kafkian novel of the period between the two world wars.

Femeia in rosu (The Woman in Red), by Mircea Nedelciu, Adriana Babeti and Mircea Mihaies, a metafiction about the death of John Dillinger, set in the times of the American prohibition.

Mircea Ivanescu Cristian Popescu Gellu Naum Simona Popescu Mircea Cartarescu Nichita Stanescu

NON-FICTION

Mihail Sebastian - Jurnal (Journal, about the antisemitism of the 30s and 40s); it is translated into English Nicolae Steinhardt - Jurnalul fericirii (The Journal of Happiness); a Jewish-born atheist who gets christianised while imprisoned in the communist gulag and becomes an orthodox monk). Matei Calinescu - Portretul lui M (The Portrait of M). The writer (a professor at Indiana University din Bloomington, the author of Rereading and Five faces of Modernity) writes about his autistic son, dead at the age of 26.

WRITERS BORN IN ROMANIA BUT WRITING IN OTHER LANGUAGES:

Eugen Ionescu Tristan Tzara Gherasim Luca Herta Muller Andrei Codrescu

AIBlyth

12 February 2008 2:40pm

0

My English translation of the novel "Little Fingers" by Filip Florian is now in press at Harcourt (USA).

Other novels in the course of translation and seeking publishers:

Dan Lungu: "Hens' Heaven: Faux Novel of Rumours and Mysteries" (Polirom: Jassy, 2004). We find ourselves in Acacias Street, at the outskirts of a small town in post-communist Romania. At the very last moment, the 1989 Revolution spares this sleepy, almost rural street from demolition under Ceausescu's "systematisation" programme. Adaptation to the new socio-political system is painful for some and impossible for others. Most of the street's inhabitants are unemployed factory workers, "heroes" under communism, but now the "ballast" of the new order. Ticu Zidaru, who, as a tractor driver, had been in the socialist vanguard, is the only person on the street to have adapted to a market economy: he has converted the cab of his tractor, wrecked in an accident, into a bar in his backyard. It is at "The Crumpled Tractor" that the street's men gather to drink rotgut, nostalgically recall the old regime, debate magically real occurrences, hatch get-rich-quick schemes, tell tall tales, and foment rumours. A succession of untoward events provides plenty of fuel 

for such rumours: Veronica Geambasu, the street's well-behaved girl-next-door becomes "the possessor of an illegitimate embryo"; a mysterious Colonel moves into the street, unwittingly building his sumptuous villa ("the Castle") on top of an unstable pit, filled with the rubble of demolitions from the time of systematisation; a plague of worms invades Relu Covalciuc's garden and chicken coops, a mystery whose solution will provide the novel's dénouement. Above all, Hens' Heaven is a novel of the finely observed living voice, such as in the episode where mythomaniac Mitu narrates a fantastic visit to the Central Committee and a far-fetched encounter with "the Most Beloved Son of the People". Ultimately, Acacias Street is caught between the ghost of Ceausescu, master of the past, and the West, symbol of a strange and uncertain future. Between them stretches the dark tunnel of "transition to a market economy and a democratic society".

Stefan Agopian: "Tache de Velvet" (3rd edition: Polirom: Jassy, 2004). Tache de Velvet, the eponymous, Oblomovian (anti-)hero and narrator of Stefan Agopian's magical-realist novel, has been dead and buried for more than one hundred years at the time he tells his tale. Born of noble, boyar stock at the beginning of the "wretched" nineteenth century, in the Wallachian province of Oltenia, he will be murdered in 1848, the year of revolutions, at the hands of Mamona the Younger, the son of his widowed mother's suitor. In "Tache de Velvet", early nineteenth-century Wallachia, a land at the very edge of early modern Europe, ravaged by wars and invasions, stalked by the bubonic plague, and convulsed by pogroms, becomes the 

setting for a tale in which history blends with the fantastical. As one critic puts it, in the novel "the grotesque fuses with the sublime, the spiritual with the visceral, the angelic with the demonic, the real with the oneiric, appearance with essence, death with life, fiction with history". The narrative, even at its most violent, is nonetheless permeated by languor and a certain indifference, characters and events are bathed in an atmosphere between sleep and waking, and even the final, fatal bullet can do more than "begin" to slide through the barrel of the gun. During his languorous odyssey, Tache de Velvet is joined by a pair of unlikely heroes in the form of cataleptic boyar Lapai and his philosophically minded, diminutive brother, Dwarf. In a host of colourful episodes, the ineffectual trio encounter a motley array of characters, including Greek innkeepers, Jewish apothecaries, the sinister Louis André Gabriel Bombast Vaucher (an "adept of Rousseau"), and, not least, Mamona the Elder and Mamona the Younger. "Tache de Velvet" was a novel that broke the mould of modern Romanian fiction. It was a

radical departure not only from the officially imposed dogmas of socialist realism prevalent at the time it was written but also from the monolithic realist traditions of the Romanian novel as they had stood since the late nineteenth century. It is a novel in which storytelling and the imagination are given free rein and take exhilarating flight.

Lucian Dan Teodorovici: "Our Circus Presents:" (2nd edition: Polirom: Jassy, 2007). Darkly humorous tale of social deprivation and an informal club for failed suicides.

Mircea Daneliuc: "Waterlogged Waders" (Bucharest: Curtea Veche, 2006). Novel by one of Romania's leading film directors. With the action set during a Chinese invasion of Europe, the greatest dangers confronting the main character, a fading rock star, spring from his adulterous affair with a aspiring songstress more than half his age.

Doina Rusti: "Zogru" (Polirom: Jassy, 2006). Zogru, a vampiric creature caught between the world of humans and a realm of subtle beings, tortured by the thought that he has no identity, travels through history, from Easter Week 1460 until the present, invading individuals and bending them to his will.http://editura.liternet.ro/catalog/2/Engleza/toate-cartile.html

http://editura.liternet.ro/catalog/2/Engleza/toate-cartile.html

http://www.icrny.org/d4-1-Romanian_literature_in_English.html

Romania readshttp://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2008/feb/12/jointheworldliteraturetour5

http://romanianliterature.tripod.com/rolit.html

http://scrisulacontrol.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/11romanianbooks.pdf

http://www.romanianwriters.ro/

http://romaniannovel.wordpress.com/

http://www.icrny.org/d4-3-Romanian_literature_in_English.html

http://halbjahresschrift.blogspot.de/2012/04/40-jahre-aktionsgruppe-banat.html

We have freedom of movement, freedom of information and freedom of speech, but we are prisoners of a disdain for our language and culture, which is feeding illiteracy, complains a Romanian historian and writer.Ovidiu P ecican

You do not need a PhD to grasp the implications of the simple fact that, in 2011, there were far fewer books sold in Romania (total sales of €60m) than there were in neighbouring Hungary (total sales of €180m), which has a smaller population.You do not need to be a communist to see that illiteracy — a problem that was largely eradicated in the 1950s — is on the increase in our country, where it now affects 6 per cent of the population, and 40 per cent of teens in the under-15 age group who lack basic reading and writing skills.You do not have to be affiliated to a political party to notice that in their neglect and denigration of Romanian national culture, Romanian governments of all political hues have been gloriously assisted by the large post-communist publishing houses, whose eagerness to earn money from translations is, in most cases, matched by their disdain for living Romanian culture. And those who are unconvinced of this fact need look no further than the percentage of editorial production in this country which is actually devoted to Romanian books.

No substitute for literary cultureIt is high time that someone once again took a stand to say that "translations do not make a literary culture," and that they cannot and should not be substituted for freely undertaken original production in the language of this country and in the name of an ethos, which is ours alone. It is once again time — even if it is tiresome to repeat history — for a Mihail Kogălniceanu [the 19th Century liberal politician, prime minister and cultural figure] to speak out against writing that comes to us from Potomac, St Petersburg or Tokyo, which, no matter how exciting and interesting it may be, and regardless of the universal values it may transmit, can never express our joy and suffering like simple tales from such breeding grounds for creative ideas as the Obor Market, the Bega Canal, or the Apuseni mountains.Writing from Potomac, St Petersbourg and Tokyo can only assume its full significance with regard to our cultural horizons, when, despite all the odds, it incites, provokes, suggests and calls for a dialogue with life as we live it. We cannot blame people for wanting to accumulate as much wealth as they can obtain in their short lives. At the same time, we will continue to delight in the works of such great untranslatable — and some would say pointless — writers as Ion Ghica, Ion Creangă and Mihail Sadoveanu... But why should the desire for gain be viewed as more legitimate? I do not believe that the goal of progress is served by the eradication of our national culture and of the language in which we publish.

Period of great creativityWe are living in a period of great creativity, marked by the expression of truly valuable voices. In many ways, it is an era that has come about as a result of more than 20 years of free movement, freedom of information and freedom of speech in Romania, which has benefited from stimulating contact with the West and the rest of the world. The exhilaration of a deep breath of ocean air has brought us a new freedom in writing, painting and musical composition, even if we have remained economically inept.

But let’s not delude ourselves: illiteracy is on the increase while the quality of teaching has fallen. The problems of our main minority — the Roma — are far from resolved. Even schooling has remained an issue. And now the population of Romania is in decline.

Time for actionSurely the time has come to take action to raise the dignity and the culture of our people to a level in tune with the aspirations of the past. Can anyone imagine that without education, and without an identity, we can be partners in a European community at the leading edge of technology? How can we ask our Magyar population to speak Romanian correctly, when we ourselves are unwilling to attribute any cultural credit to our language?This eternal travesty, this servile mimicry of the hegemonic language of the moment cannot be a solution because it strips us of all credibility. As long as we continue to discredit free cultural initiative and for as long as education remains a secondary priority, we will produce only idle citizens — a non-qualified labour force that can be put to work cheaply by the multinationals of this planet, which will have no real role in history. Is that the destiny of Romanians today? To be outsiders in our own country...

ON THE WEB

Original article at România libera  roRelated Literature: 2011 - the year of the translator The Observer London History: Sixty-Eight Publishers - books of dissent Lidové noviny Prague

Literature: Has America discovered Europe? The New York Times New YorkCategories Literature   Romania   Books and Music Article Sources România libera

Taking into consideration that the deepest roots of the Romanian literature are in the myths, legends and fairy-tales of the folkloric culture, we can say that the Romanian literature was born even before people started to write, being therefore impossible to place in time.

The Romanian language was born by the mixing of Latin with the language of the inhabitants of the ancient Dacia due to the occupation of these lands by the Roman Empire after the wars from 101-102 A.D. and 105-106 A.D. For the next centuries, other languages of the people living around this territory have influenced the already formed Romanian language, the most important ones being Slavic, Greek and Turkish.

But, to have an overview of the Romanian literature, it is necessary to make a short presentation of every period or age this literature has.1. Pre-Romanian LiteratureBefore the actual Romanian literature, there were some works written in Slavic, mainly ecclesiastic and historical writings, which are part of the Romanian literature, being later translated into Romanian. The Slavic language entered these territories in the 10th century, writing in Slavic appearing in the 12th century. There are many chronicles as Macarie's Chronicle, Eftimie's Chronicleand Azarie's Chronicle. But the most important piece of literature of this period seems to beNeagoe Basarab - The teachings of Neagoe Basarab to his son, Theodosie.2. HumanismThe first document written in Romanian is considered to be Neacsu's letter to Hans Benkner of Brasov written in 1521. Some of the most important writings from this period are either religious -Varlaam's Romanian teaching book, Simion Stefan's The New Testament from Bãlgrad (1648) and The Bible from Bucuresti (1688)- either historical - the chronicles of Grigore Ureche, Miron Costin and Ion Neculce.

But, the most important of this period, considered the father of Romanian literature, is Dimitrie Cantemir and his books Descriptio Moldaviae and The Hieroglyphic History. He is the first talented Romanian writer.3. The EnlightenmentIn Romania this literary movement is very closely related to the so-called Transylvanian School(Scoala Ardeleanã) and to the struggle of the Romanians in Transylvania for national liberation from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The representatives of this period are Ion Budai Deleanu withTiganiada, Ienãchitã Vãcãrescu, Alecu Vãcãrescu, Anton Pann, Costache Conachi, Samuel Micu, Petru Maior, Gheorghe Sincai.4. RealismRealism appears in Romanian literature after the great revolution of 1848, when there is a need in literature to reflect the social and national realities of the time. There is also a critical attitude of the writers towards the social reality. The representatives of this period are: Ion Heliade Rãdulescu, Grigore Alexandrescu, Vasile Cârlova, Andrei Muresanu, Dimitrie Bolintineanu - in poetry, and Costache Negruzzi, Nicolae Filimon, Alexandru Odobescu, Bogdab Petriceicu Hasdeu - in prose. The most important of all is Vasile Alecsandri, poet and playwright, who has both realist and romantic works.5. The Great Romanian ClassicsStarting with 1863 there is a new direction developing in the Romanian literature. It is the epoch of the greatest Romanian writers. Poetry is dominated by Mihai Eminescu, the Romanian national poet, who has made the most important renewal in Romanian poetry. In prose there are two great artist who had a great contribution to the development of this genre: Ioan Slavici, Ion Creangã. The dramatic literature is by far dominated by Ion Luca Caragiale, the greatest Romanian playwright. The person who has theorized the directions in the literature of this period was Titu Maiorescu.6. The End of the 19th CenturyWhat characterizes the Romanian literature between the end of the 19th century and a few decades of the 20th century is the simultaneity of several different literary movements. There is the

social poetry, a prose with a realistic tendency, but there is also a rebirth of a provincial romanticism. There is also a movement towards renewal, mostly present through symbolism. The first Romanian symbolist is Alexandru Macedonski. Other representatives of this period are: Barbu Stefãnescu Delavrancea, George Cosbuc and Octavian Goga.7. The Literature between the WarsThe period between World War I and World War II is maybe the most prolific one in Romanian literature, in all domains and for all genres. Therefore we have great story-tellers like Mihail Sadoveanu, poets like George Bacovia (symbolist), Tudor Arghezi, Lucian Blaga, Ion Barbu, Ion Pillat (expressionists) and Vasile Voiculescu, who is also a short-story writer. But there is no doubt that the novel is the supreme genre of this period, and now the greatest Romanian novelists have a very prodigious activity. The novelist of this period are Liviu Rebreanu, Hortensia Papadat Bengescu, Cezar Petrescu, Ion Agârbiceanu (the critical-objectiv novel), Camil Petrescu (the subjectiv expressionistic novel), George Cãlinescu (the classical-realistic novel), Mateiu Caragiale (the baroque novel) and Mircea Eliade (the symbolist-expressionist novel). In drama we have writers like Camil Petrescu and Lucian Blaga, while the critics, theorists of the time areEugen Lovinescu, Tudor Vianu, George Cãlinescu, Pompiliu Constantinescu, and many others. This is also the period of the essayists Emil Cioran, Constantin Noica, Paul Zarifopoland Mihai Ralea.8. The Literature after World War IIAlongside the writers from the previous period, who continue their activity after WW II, as well, there is a new generation of writers, which could have continued the positive development of the Romanian literature from the period between the wars. But, after 1984, and mostly in the 60s, there is an ill-fated subordination of literature to the political power, manifested through the imposing of certain directions and ideologies that deviated it from its natural meanings. Starting with the 70s, literature begins to detach from the political pressure. Therefore, the representatives of this period are: Marin Preda, Eugen Barbu, Stefan Bãnulescu, Fãnus Neagu, Radu Popescu, Augustin Buzura, Nicolae Breban, Geo Bogza, Nicolae Steinhardt - in prose, Nichita Stãnescu, Geo Dumitrescu, Stefan Augustin Doinas, A.E. Baconski, Marin Sorescu, Ana Blandiana - in poetry, and Marin Sorescu, Horia Lovinescu, Ion Bãiesu - in drama.9. Postmodernism (The 80s)The generations of the 80s and 90s detach from the past in an ironic manner. This happens by ironically assuming the old artistic styles, thus denying them, demystifying them. Especially in prose, there is a shift in what the subject is concerned. Thus, it seems that in a novel, it is not the events that are important, but rather the way the novel was written, that is the novel about writing a novel. Some of the writers of this period are: Mircea Nedelciu, Gheorghe Crãciun, Mircea Cãrtãrescu Tudor Dumitru Savu, Tudor Vlad, Horia Ursu, Ion Bolos, Tudor Danes. Besides them, some of the writers from the previous period also continue their activity.10. Postmodernism (The 90s)After the Revolution in 1989, a period of intense recovery follows. Now, some texts which were not published during the dictatorship are published. Apart this, the period is characterized by an acute crisis of the fiction. In this period we have writers like Rodica Draghincescu, Marian Ilea, Adrian Otoiu, Daniel Bãnulescu, Horia Gârbea and Cãtãlin Târlea.Bibliography1. Alexandrescu, Emil (1995). Analize si sinteze de literaturã românã. Iasi: Moldova2. Glodeanu, Gheorghe (1998). Dimensiuni ale romanului contemporan. Baia Mare: Gutinul3. Grigor, Andrei (1994). Limba si literatura românã. Bucuresti: E.D.P4. Nicolae, Nicolae I. (1993). Limba si literatura românã. Bucuresti: E.D.P.