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 ...

Critics | Leo Butnaru

The Experts Weigh In

July 01, 2009

Critic: Jean Harris, interviewer

World-famous novelist Norman Manea, two premier experts in the realm of literature in translation—Susan Harris of Words Without Borders and Chad Post of Three Percent and Open Letter—and award-winning translator from German Susan Bernofsky address a literary zone in permanent crisis: the ...

Critics | Răzvan Petrescu

Răzvan Petrescu: a Collage Round Table by way of Introduction

June 01, 2009

Someone once told me, the word Romanian speaks less to nationality than it does to career. Job description: on a daily basis the candidate must juggle ridicule and despair, cynicism and familial gallows humor and avidity for life. You can’t live here without hearing countless citizens ...

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, ...

Synopsis | Filip Florian

Days of the King

May 01, 2009

Joseph Strauss (Berlin dentist, Catholic, without family, steadfast client of the Eleven Tits brothel and Der Große Bär beer cellar) leaves Prussia in the spring of 1866 and follows his patient, Captain of Dragoons Karl Eitel Friedrich Zephyrinus Ludwig von Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen ...

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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