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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

Declared population at the last census: 695 according to the 2002 statisticsEstimated true population: over 15,000 Inhabited territory: the South of Romania, especially Oltenia and big industrial and urban areas Population in the rural/urban areas: 60% in the urban areas,

Hans (some people called him Hanz, or Franz, others Krantz like the cake, and others didn't even take the trouble to call him that much) had a wife who towered over him by a full head, and had a truly horse-like face. Her legs were long and slender, and seemed to lack

excerpts Motto: It is known that, when a people is about to disappear, first its high society disappears, and with it the literature. (Milorad Pavici, The Khazar Dictionary) Lazar Saineanu and his studies in folklore. An ethnographic controversyLazar Saineanu was a very

excerpt Let's not be beastly to the nemţi[1], indeed. We owe them solid buildings dating back to prosperous times, they founded many a fortified city and settlement of historic importance; in one of our common sayings, absolute fairness is equated to splitting costs

I have always wondered why so many of those who happen to be born within the Carpathian arch, in Transylvania, have a sense of coming from a unique, privileged area, why they keep an enduring and unquestioned commitment to it whatever may happen in their lives, whether they

Lend us some cash, do, till pay-day, now how's one supposed to react to such an entreaty, and at such short notice, too?, one may have or not have the money, but when one has an equally hard time making ends meet, when the gap between the lustre of respectability and

In 1962, Andi Schönfeld was a 16-year old, 1. 70 m tall, discretely freckled Jew with dark brown hair. All in all, he was rather lubberly, but with a crazy zest for life. But that story was one I only found out later. His father had been sentenced to death for espionage

Mosilor Street, the modern thoroughfare of a Bucharest that struggles so hard to appear occidentalized and yet doesn't quite manage to: something Balkan, Levantine lingers in the atmosphere of the streets, in spite of the concrete ten-floor blocks, of the road with

Here's the story Coco the clown told me one evening: I've never known my father. Neither have I asked who he was. Mother was a Galician Jewess who toured the big cities with a circus. She was known as the Spanish beauty. An acrobat she was, and used to ride a lovely

Excerpts from a discussion with Raluca Barac, published in Acum (Now) magazine, No. 13, April 1990 Going back to the fate of the cultured generation, let me make so bold as to ask your opinion of the so-called age of Noica, a phrase that seems to get bandied about quite

excerpts Chapter II: The Romanian Adamism  Oh God! What have we been doing for a thousand years?! All our life, ever since a century ago, is nothing but the process through which we realized we actually did nothing… the comparison with what was accomplished in other countries