Discover Romanian Literature at this mind-expanding event tonight in Bloomsbury
We were very excited to catch up with Andreea Scridon to talk about the Romanian literature as world literature event coming up!
All about the Stories: Romanian Literature as World Literature | Gower Street Waterstone’s | Tuesday 10 April 2018 | £6.72/8.96
Here’s what she had to tell us…
In London, Romania’s literary scene flourishes, thanks in part to the festivities organized in honor of the country’s centenary year. These events, held primarily by the Romanian Cultural Institute in London, make unique and affordable opportunities to interact with figures involved in the creative industries.
Tonight’s event is entitled ‘All about the Stories: Romanian Literature as World Literature’ and is organised by the Romanian Cultural Institute at Waterstones Gower Street, on the occasion of the 2018 London Book Fair. The novelties on offer are varied: there will be poetry, fiction, history, literary criticism and children’s books. Invitees include:
❖ Magda Cârneci is a Romanian writer, art historian and curator and the editor-in-chief of the ARTA magazine, the most important contemporary art magazine in Romania. She will present ‘A Deafening Silence’, Shearsman Books, 2017.
❖ Ion Bogdan Lefter is a literary critic and historian, cultural and political analyst. Professor at the Faculty of Letters, University of Bucharest (since 1990), director of the Ph.D. program of the same Faculty (since 2011).
❖ Arabella McIntyre-Brown is a Romania-based journalist and best-selling author. She will present ‘Floss, the Lost Puppy’ and ‘Dragons over London’, Booklet Fiction, 2017.
❖ Christian Moraru is Class of 1949 Distinguished Professor in the Humanities, reading American Literature and Critical Theory at University of North Carolina, Greensboro. He is co-editor, together with Andrei Terian and Mircea Martin, of Romanian Literature as World Literature (Bloomsbury, 2018).
❖ Andrei Terian is Dean of the Faculty of Letters and Arts and Professor of Romanian Literature in the Department of Romance Studies of the Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, Romania. He will present ‘Romanian Literature as World Literature’, Bloomsbury Academic, 2017.
❖ Marius Turda is Reader in 20th Century Central and Eastern European Biomedicine at the School of History, Philosophy and Culture of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Oxford Brookes University and Director of its Centre for Medical Humanities. He will present ‘Historicizing Race’, Bloomsbury Academic, 2018.
Other publications presented on this occasion are Matei Călinescu’s ‘The Life and Opinions of Zacharias Lichter’ (New York Review Books, 2018), Ana Blandiana’s ‘The Sun of Hereafter. Ebb of the Senses’ (Bloodaxe, 2017), and Lucian Dan Teodorovici’s ‘Matei Brunul’ (Dalkey Archive Press, 2018).
For context, a few facts about Romanian literature:
1) According to Herodotus, the Thracians (the ancestors of present-day Romanians) invented the melody. It shouldn’t surprise us to learn that the lyric tradition carries on in Romanian literature today, and the link between Romanian folk music and poetry is a tightly bound one.
2) Ovid, the Roman poet, was exiled to modern-day Romania, and eventually adopted Dacian culture, writing his last poems in the Dacian tongue. In counterbalance, many literary names that we recognize as international are originally Romanian: some examples include Cioran, Tzara, and Ionesco.
3) The ‘golden age’ of Romanian literature is considered to be in the period between the two World Wars, and indeed boasts a collection that is varied enough for all tastes. A favoured novel is Diary of a Short-Sighted Adolescent by Mircea Eliade, reviewed by Nick Lezard for The Guardian. Books from this period are enjoying considerable popularity today and, as a result, are involved in a process of ongoing translation and publication on the British literary scene.
4) Due to Romania’s unique geographic location, its literature has historically been a fusion of multicultural and multi-lingual elements: we include elements from Latin, Greek and Slavonic influences, as well as German and Hungarian.
5) Contemporary names to know are Herta Müller, Nobel laureate, and Mircea Cărtărescu, winner of the Prix Goncourt.
Tickets are available on Eventbrite here
I am Joint Editor at To Do List. I like free, cheap & offbeat London, especially: cabaret, art, theatre, pop-ups, eating out, quirky films, museums, day trips, social enterprise & much more.
