The Couch Grass
Even if this was a long time ago, two of the phrases that remind me of her really bring her back to my mind. When her yard was filled with Gypsies, and – everybody knows this – such a thing happens often enough, because this is the way they go, in gangs, she would chase
On Multiculturalism
Some words are graceless. Among them, I would list the word minority without any hesitation. When somebody says I am a minority member, I take offense, no matter what that person might give me in exchange. If we consider the human body, the heart and the brain form minorities,
The Pillow
Costache is a clerk of consequence, only a few years away from retirement. He visits his daughters from his first marriage rather infrequently, and secretly, too. They did object to his remarriage, but then neither was his second wife too keen on his damsels. They didn't
On Armenian Writers
When I was asked to write these lines, I thought I had got it wrong, or they had gone to the wrong person. Writing about Ştefan Agopian and Bedros Horasangian (I give their names in alphabetical order, but who knows what may come out of it, you're never too sure with
The Art Of War
excerpt1 Day was a-dawning sluggishly on Saints Eusignius, Nona and Fabius, a Saturday as it happened; like unto a blunt blade scraping at the gloom caked all over our bodies did the daybreak appear, and impotent, too. The bells tolled half-heartedly and a thin film of
On Literature And Minorities
The literature of minorities? Literature has always belonged to a minority. Even the one that claims to be the spokesperson for a majority is still addressed to a minority. Because usually, and these days this is even more obvious than before, readers only represent a minority,
About Mihail Sebastian
There may be nothing more seductive than man's attempt to reach the limit of the absolute, the fire and thrill of embodying the universal which confers sense and soundness to the human adventure. More so, as this endeavor begins with the accidental and ephemeral of
The Accident
excerptStanding in front of the Corso building on Calea Victoriei one day, he felt someone's familiar gaze follow him from across the street, as if to catch his eye. He crossed over, as though answering a call, and discovered a picture of Ann among several other portraits
On Jews And Judaism
The Jewish problem is not only a problem of the absolute Mathematician; it is one of the whole mankind. The first Christian commentators of the Pentateuch kept calling the attention to the mistake of registering the Scripture to the letter. Certainly, the Jews in Moses'
Occurrences In Current Unreality
I pant, I sink, I tremble, I expire. P. B. Shelley When I stare at a fixed point upon the wall at length, it sometimes happens that I no longer know who I am, nor where I am. On such occasions I experience my lack of identify from afar, as if for a moment I had become a
On Minority Writers
The idea to bring together in one volume (be it even one issue of a prestigious publication) excerpts from the works of ethnic minority writers seems to me generous and even necessary. From the very beginning, one characteristic distinction appears useful to me. Since this
On The Romanian Melting Pot
When King Béla of Hungary decided to invite the Saxons to settle in Transylvania, the land had been severely depopulated by the Mongol invasion. The Germans came from the dry lands of Northern Europe and found here what must have seemed to them sort of a Promised Land.