Cornelia
Golna is a writer and translator living in the Netherlands. She has
translated works from Romanian, Dutch, and French, including short
stories, poetry, literary criticism, and art history. She holds a
Master of Arts degree in Classical philology from the University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her translation of two short stories by
Romanian author Norman Manea appeared in the TriQuarterly,
Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill. (“The Sweater”) and The
Paris Review (“Portrait of the Yellow
Apricot Tree”). She was also responsible for the translation of 10
of the 15 stories included in October,
Eight O’clock, Stories by Norman
Manea (Grove Weidenfeld, New York, 1992). In addition, she has
translated an anthology of modern Moldavian poetry into English in
the bilingual (French and English) edition Une
anthologie de la poésie Moldave
(L’esprit des peninsules,
Paris 1996). From Dutch she translated the catalogue accompanying the
exhibition, Figurative Art, Beginning
and End of the 20th
Century in Romania, March 6-May10,
1998, Cobra Museum, Amstelveen, the Netherlands;and from
French, “Bringing a Historical Character on Stage: L’Indiade,”
by Liliana Alexandrescu, in Hélène
Cixous. Critical
Impressions, University of Connecticut,
Storrs, Lit Book Series, Gordon and Breach, Publishers, 1999 OPA. Her
latest translation is “Names,” a short story by Romanian author
Adriana Bittel, which will be part of an anthology of contemporary
Romanian fiction in Absinthe: New
European Writing.
Recently,
her own writing has overshadowed her translating work. In 2004, she
published her novel, City of Man’s
Desire, A Novel of Constantinople, (Go-Bos
Press). In December 2006, the book was brought out in Greece by Σύγχρονοι Ορίζοντες
(Synchronoi Orizontes), Thessaloniki &
Athens, with the title Κωνσταντινούπολη,
πόλη των πόθων (Konstantinoupoli
poli ton pothon), translated
by Lydia Polyzopoulou. It was
on the bestsellers’ list of Greece’s largest newspaper, To
Vima, for 7 weeks, from January to
April. According to an article published on December 15, 2007, in the
Greek newspaper, Ta Nea (The News), "Πολιτική εναντίον έρωτα" (Politiki enantion erota: Politics versus love,
[http://www.tanea.gr/default.asp?pid=30&ct=19&artid=48506&enthDate=15122007]),
between December 2006 and December 2007, the Greek translation of City of Man’s Desire
sold 22,500 copies. Publication in Turkish and Romanian translations
is expected soon.
