Lob für Filip Florians Roman von Perlentaucher.de

January 16, 2009

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In einem Karpatenstädtchen wird in den Ruinen einer römischen Festung ein Massengrab entdeckt. Da die Bewohner es für eine Hinterlassenschaft des mörderischen Ceausescu-Regimes halten und der Regierung in Bukarest nicht trauen, werden zur Aufklärung Anthropologen aus Argentinien eingeflogen. Ausgehend von diesem Ereignis entwickelt Filip Florian in seinem Debütroman "Kleine Finger" ein zwischen Grauen und Groteske, Realismus und Fiktion changierendes Spiel um verdrängte Schuld und Misstrauen in einer diktaturgeschundenen Gesellschaft. Bizarr wie die Gebirgswelt der rumänischen Karpaten findet die FR diesen Roman mit seiner funklenden Prosa. Die SZ sieht in dem Buch zugleich einen politischen Roman, einen archäologischen Krimi und einen klugen Versuch über die historische Beweispflicht der Literatur.

About this issue

This July, The Observer Translation Project leaves its usual format to present a special CRISIS ISSUE. Things are tough all over. Hard Times suddenly feels like the book of the moment. The global economic crisis impacts life as we know it, and viewed from Bucharest the effects reverberate in domains that include geo-politics and publishing in Romania and abroad, with the crisis at The Observer Translation Project as an instance of a universal phenomenon. read more...

Translator's Choice

Author: Stelian Tănase
Translated by: Jean Harris

From Maestro: A Melodrama. Episode 7

Emiluţa has an unfortunate thought. She’ll throw herself off the top of the building. Why? What the fuck? Let’s say for the cause of PeaceonEarth, for the slumdogs, Europe, for the lonely. Which is to say she doesn’t have a ghost of a reason. Viva Walachia! The way things stand, if ...

Translator’s Note
Translator’s Note: a synopsis

Author: Ştefan Agopian
Translated by: Ileana Orlich

How I Learned to Read (from Tache de Catifea / The Velvet Man)

The bearded man was the owner of an apothecary shop where he worked with two apprentices. Nobody paid me any mind, so I spent all day in what was supposed to be the shop. I say this because it was a large, dark room full of odors—a mix of smells from everywhere. The room hadn’t been cleaned ...

Translator’s Note
Re: Learning to Read, from Tache de catifea / The Velvet Man

Author: Gabriela Adameşteanu
Translated by: Patrick Camiller

Wasted Morning - Napoleon in Bucharest

“What you’ve got here is heaven on earth,” Vica says as she drops onto the kitchen chair. “But where’s your mother?” “At work,” Gelu lazily replies, leaning sideways against the door. “She’s doing mornings this week, didn’t you know?” He is tall and thin, with unset ...

Author: Petre Ispirescu
Translated by: Jean Harris

Youth Without Age and Life Without Death

It happened once as never before-y, ‘cause if it couldn’t be true, it wouldn’t make a story about the time when the poplar tree made berries and the willow tree broke out in cherries, when bears began to brawl with their tails, and wolf and lamb, unfurling their sails, threw arms around each ...

Translator’s Note
On Petre Ispirescu