PiE

The First Book, The Last Book

excerpts Dear Mother, I'd like to tell you something, and just because if I tried to talk to you about it, you wouldn't let me, I'm putting it in writing. You said to me, I quote: You go to school, do a good job there, finish well and we'll let you do

Novel Of The Nearsighted Adolescent

excerpt  VI. MONDAY, 8 TO 9, GERMAN When I was in the first grade, I flunked French, German and Romanian. I used to spend my afternoons barefoot on the pitch, sweating, short-sighted, playing oina. [1] I had become famous for the lightning rapidity with which I would catch

The Storm

The two students, Andrei Banica and Tudor Leru were in a hurry. That's why they had taken the shortcut. Leaving the highway that was taking a detour on the bank of the river Aries, they decided to climb up Vanatu, the mountain bordering on the river like a huge flat

Shows

Due to a perverse intellectual precocity, Barutzu confuses literature with lard. . . You'll get a D in Romanian! Daddikins shouted at him, offended in his pedagogy. Barutzu feels no emotion whatever. He aberrantly lacks the common sense of merit, the patriotism of class

The Offensive Of Childhood

I was never a child, I never had childhood… warm, golden days of puerile frenzy, the long-lasting serenity of innocence, the surprise given by the daily discovery of the universe, what do all these mean to me? I know nothing of them, or I no longer remember anything. I

The Sabine Amphora

excerpt  THE IRON PALM TREE In front of the Burebista eating inn stops one of those tiny automobiles that no one notices, a frog Skoda or a small Fiat, one doesn't know exactly what model, because the respective car raised a huge amount of dust that the Dobrogea

The End Of The Holidays

excerpt Even though he would not have admitted it for anything in the world (he was a big boy now!), Gelu had not lost his taste for play. Before his indignant conscience, he held the one guilty to be Jack Barbecan, who had tapped on his door that morning: Gelu, let's

Anchors Away!

Radu TUDORAN's (penname of Nicolae Bogza) Anchors Away!, a very successful novel, later made into a film (aka Full Sail, 1976, directed by Mircea Mureşan - click to see trailer here), competing in nautical erudition, plot and length with Jules Verne's The Children

The Last Redoubt

excerpt 2 JUNE 1877 My mother has written to me. Her letter took two weeks to reach here. A long, tender letter, such as only a mother can write. Pieces of advice and fears, events back home and thoughts about the war, and then more advice… She thinks I am still a child.

Captain Ion's Arrow

excerpt While they were rushing on horseback towards Curtea de Arges, the boy was thinking about Voiena. He could not work out if he still felt something for her. He remembered only the taste of her kisses and the hot softness of the girl's cheek, pressed to his, while

A Little Piece Of Advice For Parents

Puppet actor A special relation is born between the child and the puppet, when the latter is handled with love and passion. I remember the kids who came backstage at the end of a show to see the puppets close up, touch them, and talk to them. They were very surprised to

The Story Of Pillet

The idea of founding a puppet theatre as a means of improving health education among children, and the relationship between doctors and their little patients came from a long way off. I had read a book by Sergey Obraztsov, one of the best known and appreciated Russian puppeteers.