Feast

excerpt When I first met her, she said she adored Pablo Neruda's poetry and La Fontaine's erotic fables, which are un petit secret délicieux and, once a month, she would listen to a fragment of Le Petit Prince, interpreted by Gérard Philippe. She also told me

excerpts  I passed dizzily from one room to another… nowadays, cubist furniture is commonly used and has long ceased to make a big impression, but four years ago there were extremely few lodgings that were furnished like that. Maybe a couple of banks had dared to introduce

Chapter IX. The Blackbird And The Yellow CuckooAfter the adventure between his wife and the railway station doorman, Gore had left home dizzily, reeling on his feet as he walked away, and determined not to come back. Without having the guts to tell him the story, Safta sent

Marina, I had a fantastic dream… I'm writing it down for you.  I was getting out of bed, naked, just as I was, and left. Outside the house a beautiful orchard extended in all directions. The shadows of the trees, the moonlight, and I – walking the tender grass

As the story goes, there once lived a farmer in a village. And the farmer went forth to sow some maize. Now it came to pass, as he was sowing, that the Lord Himself chanced to walk by, Saint Peter at His side. Now, it would have been right and meet for our Lord to hold His

In a village, the story goes, there once lived a lad who had neither father, nor mother, nor any other kin; so obscure was his lineage, in fact, that for all we know, he may well have dropped there from the sky. As the boy was meek, long suffering and slow to speak, the

Short history The Slavs, the ancestors of the Serbs, began settling on Romania's territory in the early Middle Ages. The Serbs from north of the Sava and the Danube, as well as those who went to the Balkan Peninsula, in the 7th century, became Christians in the second

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,

excerpt Bunthe had thought it appropriate to put up their two unexpected guests from Bucharest with Father Calist. The villagers were saying they had got lucky. The weather was beautiful, spring was coming. The sun shone as if it was already April. The wildflowers that

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

Who can even imagine nowadays that more than a century ago, Romania, going through a period of economic expansion, was a sort of terra promessa on which the seasonal workers relied in order to make money and on which the immigrants from western countries relied in order

Life Histories in Bucharest – the 20th Centuryexcerpt All the Greeks in the city sought to make me their son-in-law. Demostene Gramatopol, 1910-? My initial intention was to interview both Greeks belonging to the old Greek community in Bucharest, and some of those who