Traces

A conflict has arisen, a platonic one for now. The directors of the theatres in Bucharest are questioning the sense of an out-dated provision stipulating that performances must not be carried out during fast weeks. The holy metropolises and bishoprics have demanded this

I once saw a wounded crane, dying, on the edge of a forest where he had fallen while his friends were dashing away to the horizon, like a black arrow. The bright eye that ripped the horizon was shaded little by little, his long, powerful legs were sinking into the dust,

excerpt THE MAKING OF EARTH AND ITS LIFE STORYI have already put together in my earlier works a whole series of histories and beliefs dealing with the world before its making as well as with the world above the endless realm of eternal water: And I strongly doubt that anyone

It was the month of June, 1821. Tudor Vladimirescu had risen from the darkness of Oltenia's forests; he had carried from Cernetzi all the way to Bucharest the light of his prophetic claims and he had set down like the sun, somewhere between Goleshti and Targovishte,

excerpts Crina: Very few people on the trolleybus. I take a seat and as always I get to be on the sunny side. I prop an elbow in the curved rubber of the windowsill. White with powder and fingerprints, it is filled with seed coats and a used ticket. Gusts of wind carrying

Years ago, I experienced a peculiar evening. My life is far from eventful, and the few significant occurrences I do remember have been sucked for all they're worth in my books. There are, nevertheless, among their number some which, for a variety of reasons, I couldn't

excerpt The second time I went to Alina's parents', the neighborhood seemed too familiar not to imagine that my memory was playing a prank on me, and not a nice one. I had got off the tram a few steps away from the barber's called The Merry Whiskers, which

excerpt Close to our home there was a shop that sold sewing machines, where I used to go day after day and spend hours on end. The owner was a young boy, Eugen, who had just completed the compulsory military service and had found a way to make a living in the city by opening

excerpt The more we drew near the little hamlet, the more I felt in my heart the finger of a tremor stirring up the layers of tranquility. And although I tried to shake off this unwanted mood, my eyes were looking round stealthily, for the hillock we would climb, on which

excerpts FOREWORD TO A LOVE NOVEL You have been written to meNot to my depression, my sadnessBut to the true I, powerful – and ruthless.  I look at your fresh girlish bodyAnd a tempest of infernal thoughts rages through me My blood and my bones dictate everything I have

The two Popescus had meanwhile agreed that the first settlement the current location of the village could be traced down to, with any degree of accuracy, dated back to the middle of the 18th century or thereabouts, and belonged to a band of plain raiders coming to rest in

I saw the light of day in an atypical village of Bucovina. It was a multiethnic village, a kind of summary of Europe. A European Union avant la lettre. It is there, I believe, that a direction in my life was traced, an ecumenical dominant feature, one of understanding of