three romanian authors to read with ur dracula daily
dracula is an orientalist text conceived at the height of british empire, grounded on distortions of a region that stoker never visited. sadly (and unsurprisingly) i found very few romanian authors who have been translated into english online, so here’s a meagre list of recs:
1. luminița cioabă
romanian roma author, famous in romania as the daughter of bulibasha (the king of the roma nation), she forged her own path as a writer of short stories in the oral roma tradition which portray in vivid detail the history of the roma people of romania
the birch grove
queen of the night and stone flower
meralda
from her book, the lost country
2. marin sorescu
from humble rural romanian roots, he wrote under the oppressive ceausescu government. in a national ironic tradition he very famously said: "Just as I can’t give up smoking because I don’t smoke, I can’t give up writing because I have no talent.“ some of my favorite poems:
the sea shell (1983)
carbon paper (1980)
creation (1992)
3. paul celan
jewish romanian poet from bucovina. i recommend this beautiful essay by ilya kaminsky, who like celan was forced to flee eastern europe due to antisemitism, deconstructing various translators’ attempts to adapt celan’s texts and experience of the holocaust. these are all poems from a 1971 poetry collection
all souls
leap-centuries
language mesh and night
homecoming
