The gate

Alone In The Shower

excerpt  You haven't the slightest idea what sound the stopper makes when you hit it with that DAMNHUGEBOLT. Yes, that's the bolt I'm talking about, the bolt I'll never forget, as long as I'll live 'cause it was damn necessary to stop it without

Alexandru

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

The Intruder

excerpt  I wasn't wrong. In every woman, more than in a man, lies a history. But I have never in my life heard a shorter one, although the events in it could very well be enough for someone, their entire life. Could Nutzi have felt that I wasn't able to listen

The Pit

excerpt They wandered about the villages around Bucharest, the old man leading the way, Paraschiv right behind him. They went to Bolintin, to Catzelu, eager for prey. They always went there on market days when the peasants were there, as these were the most likely victims

L'Abbandonata

excerpt I was half asleep in a somewhat uncertain state of mind (and of body)… A vague and – at first – terribly tortuous state of wakefulness was gently falling over me; then, the same confounded state came back floating over me, translucent, like some veils unbraided

The Russian Woman

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

The Invective Poem

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 Tale Of Ionica The Fool

In a village, the story goes, there once lived a lad who had neither father, nor mother, nor any other kin; so obscure was his lineage, in fact, that for all we know, he may well have dropped there from the sky. As the boy was meek, long suffering and slow to speak, the

My Peaceful, Multiethnic Village

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

The Gypsy

When summer's heat vanished away,The ice-cold wind moved in to stay. The Gypsy, dressed in threadbare cloth,Had built no shelter, out of sloth. He did perceive that sloth was wrong,Yet his own sloth was much too strong. The winter raged on, cold and hard. So, to the

The Dynamic Equivalence Of Gypsy Fashion

Gianina lu' Manşonică of Sinteşti interviewed by Tita Chiper Our host's courtyard could be best described as transition in progress, accurately preserving each of its successive stages: it begins with two run-down foreign cars, and ends with an ashen tent proudly

Outline Of The History, Customs And Language Of The Gypsies

excerpts All chronicles show that this nomadic people appeared first in Moldavia; indeed, in order to come to Europe from India, they had to cross the Black Sea, which Moldavia used to border on at that time. In 1417, in the 19th year of the rule of Alexander the Good,