Translator's Choice - Translations.observatorcultural.ro

From Maestro: A Melodrama. Episode 7

Stelian Tănase | March 27, 2009

Translated by: Jean Harris

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 ...

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

Ştefan Agopian | March 01, 2009

Translated by: Ileana Orlich

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 ...

Wasted Morning - Napoleon in Bucharest

Gabriela Adameşteanu | February 01, 2009

Translated by: Patrick Camiller

“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 ...

Youth Without Age and Life Without Death

Petre Ispirescu | December 20, 2008

Translated by: Jean Harris

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 ...

In Praise of the Soviet tualet

Vasile Ernu | November 01, 2008

Translated by: Florin Bican

In Praise of the Soviet tualet Dedicated to Ilya Kabakov There’s hardly a space more conducive to intimacy in the life of the Soviet ...

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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...