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Contributor

Luminita Mihai Cioaba

Contributor

Luminita Mihai Cioaba

Luminita Mihai Cioaba, the daughter of a Bulibasha (the king of a Gypsy nation or tribe in a Turkish term used by the Romanian Roma), is both a poet and a prose writer. Her book, The Lost Country, is a volume of traditional stories more or less as told to her by her grandmother, as she has described it; but clearly they are elaborated and filled in with detail in a way more modern than traditional oral tales. The title story is a fable of why the Gypsies must always be on the road and why they have no home. Others represent Roma life in various ways-- violence, magicians, music, dance--but the lens is always that of a folk or mythic tale, and a woman's perspective. Many are told by internal narrators, usually old grannies to young women entering the world. Cioaba's collections of poetry include Earth's Root and The Rain Merchant. She has been honored with literary awards in Romania and Italy. The Lost Country was first published with Romanian and Romani versions in Sibiu, Romania, in 2002. Sorkin and Cirstea's English version is currently seeking a publisher.

Articles by Luminita Mihai Cioaba

The Birch Grove
By Luminita Mihai Cioaba
When the winds sweep away winter’s dreaming, March dresses up in flowers and grass and, on long wings, ushers in the spring. Then, without ever knowing why, trees raise their naked arms to the King…
Translated from Romany by Adam J. Sorkin & Cristina Cirstea
Queen of the Night and Stone Flower
By Luminita Mihai Cioaba
On the souls of those who live life free under the skies—with the blades of grass, at the edge of the forest, on hills bedizened with bright flowers of the field—it is written that they must…
Translated from Romany by Adam J. Sorkin & Cristina Cirstea
Meralda
By Luminita Mihai Cioaba
Just as the sun rises every day, giving its light to the earth, so day after day, year in, year out, we Roma travel on, without knowing where we are headed but following the road that lies before us.…
Translated from Romanian by Adam J. Sorkin & Cristina Cirstea
from The Lost Country
By Luminita Mihai Cioaba
The Gypsy Princess and the NightingaleThe truth is that, in the days of yore, the Gypsies had a country. Now they keep searching for it in vain, the wheels of their wagons wearing ruts in the roads as…
Translated from Romanian by Adam J. Sorkin & Cristina Cirstea