Alo

On Minorities' Literature

In Romania, no less than 18 minorities live alongside the majority population, having more or less weight. This has favored – especially in some cases – a very interesting and significant cultural melting pot process, the birth of an extremely rich and diversified cultural

Yesterday

To clarify the unities of place, time and action in this world: here, now and thus, when one can no longer believe in the laws of happening, because this place is not in the now, and this now does not thus give temporality to the here. The present reality of things past

Kaddish Elegy

1Not you, Allen Ginsberg,nor you, the Jewish God of Revenge,nor his five-thousand years old people,shall hear my Kaddish,but you, Gentiles, shall hear it,here,in Europe. I, the uncircumcised,a child of the baptized childrenof a thousand years, -before your eyes I grew a

On Hungarian Literature

Four years ago, in June 1996, the World Conference on Language Rights held its session in Barcelona, the capital of the Spanish region Catalonia. As the result of several years' work of preparations, the Universal Declaration of Language Rights was adopted here. PEN,

Editor's Note

Only when dialogue and tolerance begin to work at normal parameters, will truths be understood in their essence, and applied in the practice of life.  Hoping that a book may constitute a celebration even in these unpredictable, amazing, and occasionally grievous times,

Sightseeing

Visiting cities, a consumer tourist practice, is usually presented in the same image wrapping like shopping in a boutique, or attending to a show: one goes for the glossiest package, the funniest label, the wildest excitement vouched for. As a tourist product, a city is

Everything Must Go, Or 5 Reasons Why I Stayed In Bucharest Instead Of Moving To Paris, Florence Or New York

I've always been fascinated by this city. Still, I can understand it doesn't easily translate to others. Here is a list of things one should try to perceive as charming, although - by all standards - they don't qualify as such:1. Filth. It is the quintessential

Bucharest As An Alternative Space

It may be said about some cities that they are theatrical; that – in other words – they look like a stage set. Take, for instance, Venice or Naples. It may be only an illusion, however, given a host of plays by Goldoni or Eduardo de Filippo whose plots revolve around

Recent Public Memorials In Bucharest: Paul Neagu's Century Cross

Paul Neagu's Century Cross was set up at Charles de Gaulle Plaza (the former TelevisionPlaza), Bucharest, in September 1997, as a memento of the 1989 anti-Communist riots. It is a six meter wide lenticular bronze disk with a large cross pattern on both faces made up

Everyone With The Bucharest He Deserves

After my first visit to Bucharest, in the mid-eighties, I returned to my native province with a splitting headache; I recounted the details of this anecdote elsewhere* – anyway, they had to do with two mugs of beer and a few mititei – spicy burgers – swallowed on a

The Birds Of The Sky

excerpts It was in 1985 when a young woman who had applied for an emigration visa to West Europe and was not granted it was looking for a master of Oriental practices to get strength and self-protection. She was afraid she might be arrested, and her intention was to acquire,

R.E.M.

excerpt I am going to tell you of things that happened back in 1960 or 1961, when I was still a little girl, no more than 12 years old. I was living with my family in Moşilor Street, in one of those queer houses, with the second floor protruding a little, with two very