Compulsory Happiness

From Library Journal

Norman Manea | March 30, 2009

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Manea is a Romanian concentration camp survivor who also experienced some of the absurdities of living under the Ceausescu regime. The four novellas in this collection portray the psychological discomfort of living in a police state. The Interrogation conveys the feelings of a young woman, detained on a pretense, who is stripped, shaved, and questioned by someone almost equally insecure. Composite Biography reveals how individuals are forced to change identity in order to survive. A Window on the Working Class depicts a man who inserts himself into the lives of a working couple against their will. The Trenchcoat tells how an initially secure woman becomes terrified after finding an unclaimed trenchcoat in her house. Hauntingly well done, this collection is recommended for general as well as informed readers.
Ann Irvine, Montgomery Cty. PL., Md. Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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...

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