Almost

The First Book, The Last Book

excerpts Dear Mother, I'd like to tell you something, and just because if I tried to talk to you about it, you wouldn't let me, I'm putting it in writing. You said to me, I quote: You go to school, do a good job there, finish well and we'll let you do

Novel Of The Nearsighted Adolescent

excerpt  VI. MONDAY, 8 TO 9, GERMAN When I was in the first grade, I flunked French, German and Romanian. I used to spend my afternoons barefoot on the pitch, sweating, short-sighted, playing oina. [1] I had become famous for the lightning rapidity with which I would catch

The Storm

The two students, Andrei Banica and Tudor Leru were in a hurry. That's why they had taken the shortcut. Leaving the highway that was taking a detour on the bank of the river Aries, they decided to climb up Vanatu, the mountain bordering on the river like a huge flat

The Childhood Certificate

I once experienced a terrible fright. I woke up one day to discover a different world from what I knew it to be, more clear-cut, more plainly divided into complementary colors and opposite moral categories. It all looked like in a naive painting: clear and graphic. The only

Ignoramuses

An intellectual's room: books, books, books. At his desk, Father is reading, taking notes, reading. . . the door cracks open and Puiu enters: he advances a few steps, sees Father absorbed in work, and makes for the door.  FATHER (feels his presence): Puiu, is that

The Moustache

Ever since I had known him (and there are many, many years since then, almost four), Georgica is profoundly dissatisfied with the fact he doesn't have a moustache, like every man, and isn't allowed yet to manage by himself. Why, Georgica wonders, why do you have

The Sabine Amphora

excerpt  THE IRON PALM TREE In front of the Burebista eating inn stops one of those tiny automobiles that no one notices, a frog Skoda or a small Fiat, one doesn't know exactly what model, because the respective car raised a huge amount of dust that the Dobrogea

A Streetcar Named Popescu

excerpts A Streetcar Named Popescu is a community theater show. The script by stage director Gavriil PINTE (b. 1961) is based on works by Cristian POPESCU (1959-1995). The show begins at a streetcar stop with the audience getting on the streetcar. Then the streetcar joins

The Story Of Pillet

The idea of founding a puppet theatre as a means of improving health education among children, and the relationship between doctors and their little patients came from a long way off. I had read a book by Sergey Obraztsov, one of the best known and appreciated Russian puppeteers.

Romanian Theater For Children On Tour

The echo of the rich activity of Romanian theater for children on four continents has surpassed even that of theater for adults. This was possible because, in 1965, eleven countries, including Romania, founded in Paris, ASSITEJ – the International Association of Theater

Creangă And Gopo

Gopo's Little Man (see Short History - click on Scurta istorie to see movie) I have been studying the Gopo archive belonging to the National Film Archive for some years, and now the first volume goes to print. It contains only a part of the legacy left by the film genius,

The Erstwhile Snows

Winters in Ramnicu Valcea were quite mild in those times, though there was plenty of snow (I guess this is the cliché of those whose childhood memories are blurred by their excessive subjectivity); anyway, they unfolded following a certain ritual: at the beginning of December