Archive

Letter from Chişinău

July 01, 2009

Translated by: Jean Harris, Florin Bican

Ion Luca Caragiale, the classic and much-cited Romanian writer, is probably right in asserting that “literature is…the big sister of politics,” and that “…the supreme driving force of any nation is its own thought…” Under the present circumstances, I ...

Fiction | Răzvan Petrescu

On a Friday Afternoon

June 01, 2009

Translated by: Florin Bican

Dad went and died. He was a quiet guy, slightly on the mystic side, with two deep furrows on either side of his nose. He was given to occasional bouts of melancholy, and on Sundays he’d do funny stuff over lunch. He’d toss the soup spoon towards the light fixture hanging from the ceiling, ...

Fiction | Filip Florian

The Shadows of the Captain of Dragoons

May 01, 2009

Translated by: Alistair Ian Blyth

In June, when the solstice is nigh, dawn shows itself earlier than ever. Then, however, on a Wednesday, the sunrise did not come into sight. The coach laden with suitcases, bags and chests set into motion with a jolt, one of the horses (a tallish grey mare) whinnied and chomped at the bit, ...

Fiction | Norman Manea

Sentimental Education

March 27, 2009

Translated by: Jean Harris

It had been raining for some time when the lady accosted me at the Gheorghi Dimitrov intersection. She asked me about a tram stop, Number 17 toward Lacul Tei. When she tilted her immense red umbrella, I saw her: Madam Doctor Alfandari!—the blond of one summer afternoon a millennium ago, when ...

Fiction | Ştefan Agopian

The Geographer’s Tales

March 01, 2009

Translated by: Florin Bican

Back then stripped bare of night (as if for evermore), the days would drag on lengthily, all dust-suffused and glum. From way out somewhere, He, boundlessly watching from amidst His angel hosts, was slowing our pace as He did rest. And our saliva made as if to run dry, akin to fuzzy lint, and all ...

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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