Romanian Writers Series launches four new books in Plymouth

Four acclaimed Romanian authors will be in Plymouth in November to launch new books in the award-winning series revealing the country’s journey from the aftermath of the First World War to the development of Ceausescu’s communism.

The authors of the next books in the Romanian Writers Series: Ioan Es. Pop; Filip and Matei Florian; and Daniel Banulescu, will take part in a question and answer session hosted by BBC journalist Rosie Goldsmith (Crossing Continents, A Word in Your Ear). Romanian actress, Cristina Catalina (Primeval, The Bill) will read selected book passages and the launch will be followed by a three-day Romanian music festival.

MA Publishing programme manager and head of Plymouth University Press Paul Honeywill, told ArtsCulture: “This is a landmark collection of the very best writing which has come from Romania during the past 100 years. We are proud to be building a cultural bridge with Romania, to counter the more negative stereotypes of orphaned children and too-eager migrants.”

Plymouth University Press received an International Enterprise award for the 20 Romanian Writers Series. The five-year project is now in its second year.

Director of the Romanian Cultural Institute in London, Dorian Branea, said: “Literature, more than anything else, is the avenue towards the very heart of a nation. These books hold the essence of our culture. The beautifully translated and edited Romanian series at the University of Plymouth Press is more than an editorial undertaking, it is a revelation.”

All four titles will be available on the evening for signing by the authors. Four books are published every November and this year the launch will be held in Devonport Lecture Theatre, Portland Square Building at Plymouth University on Friday, November 19 at 5.30pm.

A reading will also be held at the Romanian Cultural Institute in London on Wednesday, November 17. The Romanian Cultural Institute’s National Book Center supports the translation program. Pop over the Romanian Cultural Institute site for more info.

The Books

Auntie Varvara’s Client
Stelian Tănase ISBN 978-1-84102-221-5
The pre-communist nickname for the Siguranţă (Romanian Security Service) was “Auntie Varvara”, and so communist underground members are literally “Auntie Varvara’s clients” of the title. Stelian Tănase explores Romania’s communist ‘roots of disaster’ from early illegal membership of the communist underground to their eventual rise to power and the struggle for supremacy. Tănase sketches a pattern of warring factions through an incredible swarm of characters who abruptly fall completely silent after the final victory of Gheorghiu-Dej and the formation of the communist police state and its hierarchy. A Romania then on course for human disaster.

Who Won the World War of Religions?
Daniel Bănulescu ISBN 978-1-84102-212-3
Contemporary madness in its entirety is summarised in Daniel Bặnulescu’s play, set in an asylum populated with twelve dangerous madmen who are divided as believers of the four major religions. This is theatre in a world governed by insanity; as Dan Stanca remarks, the play could be set anywhere – in Piteşti, in the Siberian Gulag, in a Nazi concentration camp, Maoist or Khmer Rouge extermination camp, and, even, in one of the CIA’s secret prisons … This is the principal merit and black humour of the play.

The Băiut Alley Lads
Filip and Matei Florian ISBN 978-1-84102-267-3
Following his prize-winning debut novel, Florian leaves the Romanian village life behind and takes us to Băiut Alley in Bucharest. Two brothers, Filip and Matei, are growing up in a totalitarian society. Every day life is recounted through their young eyes. Their story is one of childish naivety set against a backdrop of life imposed by communism. Their world is filled with characters from children’s television, broadcast by the official communist media, alongside magazines and cinema. ‘Joe Lemonade’, ‘Giani Morandi’, ‘Rome Specs’ and ‘Brooslee’ accentuate the absurdity and grotesqueness of their surroundings. The brothers become close through a shared love of football, supporting the same team, Dinamo Bucureşti. Ultimately, The Băiut Alley Lads is a novel about miracles that take place within a nightmare, regardless of whether they occur in an obscure lane in an obscure district of a country kept in obscurity by communist dictatorship.

No Way Out of Hadesburg and other Poems
Ioan Es Pop ISBN 978-1-84102-209-3
Originally a teacher in a village called Hadesburg, Ioan Es. Pop expresses in his poetry his response to existence in Romania under communist control, forbidden to write but able to work as a builder on Ceauşescu’s palace and living alone in a bachelor block. Pop’s poetry is an autobiographical account of such a time, a life with no way out. The world of the poems is a closed, boundless imaginary space, charged with dramatic intensity and tempered by a bittersweet, compassionate existential angst.