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Romanian Riches

October 2004

At the crossroads between East and West, past and present, brutality and romance, lies the verdant cultural landscape of Romania. Our guest editor Norman Manea has convened a stimulating literary salon, including a startling diversity of styles and themes, ranging from Virgil Duda’s somber account of the Romanian Holocaust to Adrian Otoiu’s antic fantasy of Shakespeare’s computer literacy. Mircea Cartarescu depicts the slippery slope from youthful intellectual pretentiousness into a career in the Securitate. Gabriela Melinescu pens a wry fable of Romanian Jews in Sweden. Memory and loss infuse Gabriela Adamesteanu’s retired shopkeeper’s tram ride into the past and Matei Calinescu’s eulogy for his dead son. In poetry, Mariana Marin, Romania’s Sylvia Plath, confronts her Karenina complex, and Marta Petreu conflates the all-consuming fires of love and death. Translator Julian Semilian deserves special thanks for his work in a language that is among the least-known in the Romance family.

This issue is made possible with a regrant from the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses, supported by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts.

To Live in Sin
By Virgil Duda
The chief was about to run after him and give him a beating, but Lia stood in his way and said: “He’s underage.”
Translated from Romanian by Julian Semilian
Tip of the Day, or, Shakespeare and Computers
By Adrian Otoiu
There was one more reason to get worried: for some time now, her handwriting had been shrinking, reticulated like oil paint applied on a frozen surface.
Translated from Romanian by the author
Nabokov in Brasov
By Mircea Cartarescu
“I was asked to join Securitate.”
Translated from Romanian by Julian Semilian
A Friend of the Archangel
By Gabriela Melinescu
As shadows turn to light, so was Gabriel’s sadness turning constantly into something else.
Translated from Romanian by Julian Semilian
From “Wasted Morning”
By Gabriela Adamesteanu
“The preeminent voice among contemporary Romanian women novelists.”—Norman Manea
Translated from Romanian by Patrick Camiller
From “Portrait of M”
By Matei Călinescu
Anyone’s death is a great tragedy.
Translated from Romanian by Angela Jianu
The Karenina Complex
By Mariana Marin
If only I knew how to lose my shadow on time / if only I knew how to point myself out with my finger,
Translated from Romanian by Julian Semilian
Crematorium
By Marta Petreu
The violence / the guilt with which I love you thus derive from that distance
Translated from Romanian by Adam J. Sorkin & Christina Illias-Zarifopol
Here
By Marta Petreu
You are forbidden to me. I love you but my flesh turns black upon me / a block of coal pure useless alive
Translated from Romanian by Adam J. Sorkin & Christina Illias-Zarifopol
In Another Life
By Marta Petreu
I could have been your refuge. I could have killed you. Yes you-
Translated from Romanian by Adam J. Sorkin & Christina Illias-Zarifopol
L’apparition
By Mariana Marin
And the redeeming hour in which the poem writhes; / and the young desert in the still glowing cinders;
Translated from Romanian by Julian Semilian
Red and White
By Mariana Marin
At times reality catches me in the middle of the act / and stuffs down my throat its five-cornered red stars.
Translated from Romanian by Julian Semilian
Mynheer
By Mariana Marin
Good man, my friend Mynheer . . . / Banished one day far from home
Translated from Romanian by Julian Semilian
Beretta
By Mariana Marin
Chemical. / Fire grass. / Retching.
Translated from Romanian by Julian Semilian