Romania

excerpts As he wandered out in the yard that night, as every night, actually, Platamonu saw the fire lights towards the East. He thought it should be in Teleorman, at the border of the district, or maybe in Izvoru. Anyway, it was a sign that the uprising was closing up

Romanians of more recent generations, but also some of the older ones, who were born before the Soviet occupation, and the instauration of communism in this country, without reaching then intellectual maturity, look to the period that was cut short in 1948 as a privileged

excerpt Holidays came. I and Codin had agreed never to show up in the neighborhood together, so as to spare my mother, who knew nothing. But now I could go, unhindered, and sit on the benches in Anghelina's tavern and watch my friend at will; since his unexpected intervention,

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,

COMPOSER, MUSICOLOGIST, WRITER, FOLKLORIST, INSTRUMENTALIST, ESTHETICIAN, PROFESSOR, BYZANTINOLOGIST, PHILOSOPHER Born in Galatzi (24 March 1885), he began his musical studies with his father, the composer and professor Constantin Cuclin, continued at the Bucharest Conservatoire

excerpt A lens-like sky distorting the lingering stars as they grinned their incongruous grins descended upon the frail, yet unmitigated, blue of the world at large. When he woke up, the way you may wake up when you've slept off a death, Mammon the old sighed the sigh

Chapter IVexcerpts The doorbell rang earnestly. I had noticed, during my long career as an art scholar, that all of my doorbells manifested a sort of unexpected zeal, an eagerness that suggested that these tiny technical devices strove to reach the condition of an animate

Most of the characters of Romanian fiction are outcasts and misfits and they duly suffer from it. This is not surprising, given the high speed of change experienced in the past two hundred years of Romanian history. When circumstances alter in such a rapid way, the individual

Oh, moody minstrel, hazier stillThan the old wine wedding guests toast,Ribbons and gold reward thy skill,Lavishly granted by the host.  Come, self-willed minstrel, cast thy spell,Gather thy ample voice and singAbout Laplander EnigelleAnd ancient Crypto, mushroom-king.  Best

All kinds of things happen. I remember this biker. I was sitting in front of the chalet, watching him. I was waiting to see him getting bored. He was mounting the steep slope for the forth time around and, as soon as he reached the top, he would turn his bike into a smooth,

I had known Cucoanesh as far back as the first high school years, but we had never made friends. In university, I lost touch with him. I only learnt that he entered the PolytechnicUniversity. Meeting him, by accident, in a tobacconist's, he told me that he had graduated

 Avram, the verger of Saint Nicholas church, limping on one foot and shoed with a thick sole, hung on the rope of the church bells like an old monkey. On the side of the twisted leg, the arm was twice as long, and his hand seized the rope from above with the agility of