UBB

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

excerpts Chapter IV. What path shall we choose for our evolution? 1 The history of modern Romania has registered, periodically, a phenomenon that might seem strange at first glance. That is the discussion, every two or three decades, concerning the development of the country

At the beginning of the '20s, fascism represented the newest and the most catching political phenomenon. Nevertheless, it failed to be a roaring success everywhere and especially at the very beginning. In Romania, the obsession of being permanently synchronized with

excerpts The lashes against the young generation are relentless. They have all befallen us at once, like pelts of heavy rain. The pundits charge anew and huff heavily, seconded by verbose mercenaries that bounce off like loose cannonballs of tennis. All the nuances of

excerpt FURTHER ON YOU WILL FIND OUT THAT I HAVE A GOOD MOTHER, A NAGGING SISTER AND A FATHER WHO ALWAYS YELLS Why should we lie, I know that you don't know my Christian name, nor my surname either. You have all heard that I am called Cry-Baby. Well, I was unfairly