Iona

I have meant to decompose and recompose the forms and the colors in order to prove and disclose their essence. Hortensia Papadat-Bengescu After a short story debut dominated by lyricism (Deep Waters, The Woman in front of the Mirror) and while trying (and managing) to

from A Concert of Bach's Music The Amzei Church had donned a festive appearance. People had started coming as early as three o'clock, and by four – the time of the ceremony – the street was crowded with carriages and automobiles. An archbishop was serving.

In no fight, therefore nor in the one fought today by women around the world, as well as by women closer to our soul, Romanian women, to claim their right to social life, have women ever been militant. But their voice may accompany the warlike onset of their hawkish sisters,

JEALOUSY(excerpt) For an hour, in the copse where they had stopped for their midday meal, Stavro refused to tell the story of his childhood which he had touched upon in the hayloft. He didn't really object; he was in a mood for evoking youthful memories, but he wished

I saw an ad in newspapers about a trip to the mountains and I got in without knowing anybody. About 30 of us crowded in a big race vehicle, so boys and girls, parcels, cigarette smoke, and jokes mixed up together at random. A certain Biţă was speaking in my ear untiringly.

from Requiem for Fools and Beasts That day, Estera did not come to the stadium, but the following two evenings she was there again; however, I did not pluck up enough courage to speak to her, and after overtaking me several times, she kept running about three hundred meters

excerpts First of all I have to recall that moment of my life which was the origin of the incidents that I will evoke in these confessions. It was the instant – so dramatic to me – when I first saw Alba. But right in that moment, which twisted so many years that were

The bibliography of my works I threw into the pyre included a 125-pages psychoanalytical study about Iulia Hasdeu. I had discovered her diaristic notes at the State Archives. They were then, and still are, a novelty, and perhaps a sensational thing; I'm talking about

I strove to follow, as much as I could, the form and language of the national Chronicles that have been the rightful pride of the Land of Moldavia; to collect traditions and names and words of old, in order to lend color to these episodes inspired from the old chronicles.

excerpts IThe Tomb The Royal Church bells of the townlet of Bucharest were pealing rhythmically in a mournful voice, whilst, from the hillock in sight, the small-rounded belfry of Bucur's little church was echoing back the toll in a wailing-remote fashion. It was

The first woman characters of the modern Romanian literature were anything but womanly. The Romanian romantic theatre and the historical romances of the nineteenth century abound in strong-willed, ambitious princesses, exasperated by the lack of guts in their male partners.

excerpts Almost every night I talk to Adela on the porch. The ladies go to sleep earlier. Adela shows an attentive, almost submissive, sympathy to the maestro. She is, however, more personal in opinions than before. But what is going on inside her? When she talks it always