Romanian literature - they give classic books away free with the newspapers!

Romanians are very proud of Romanian literature. Mihai Eminescu is their version of Shakespeare.

My wife could not believe I was not highly conversant with his work, after all she knows all the famous English authors such as Dickens and Hardy.

The funny thing being as soon as you leave school, you never seem to need to open another serious book. They seem to switch immediately over to trashy Romantic magazines, newspapers full of topless women - even the weather forecast seems to need a topless or scantily dressed woman to show what is happening. I guess when you have the moral high ground, you can relax a little.

Publishers are forever keen to get Romanians reading more serious books - so they give them away free with newspapers - and let you buy the top one hundred classic reads. However when they relaunch these in beautiful boxed sets from what I presume are all the millions of unsold copies, they are phenomenally expensive - pushing the completely out of the reach of all but the highest earning Romanians, who are probably there mainly because they have already powered their way through the classics.

I have frequently tried to improve my own Romanian literature skills. I started modestly and for a while, with a serious amount of concentration, could follow a trashy Romantic story. They follow similar patterns - boy meets girl - boy makes another girl pregnant - boy marries second girl, so first girl, now a shamed woman, marries violent drunkard - violent drunkard gets wild smashes up house - dies in fatal car crash - Woman two equally unsuitable and paranoid about fascination her husband has for girl 1 - so gets violent - leaves - boy 1 and girl 1 get it together and are happy. All is forgiven until Boy gets bored - has sex with her other and becomes her step dad. Repeat that story a few times, pop in a few adverts advertising witches - all problems solved in 24 hours or your money back! - and you have a winning Romanian magazine.

I did own a translated version of Mihai Eminescu's poems - in Romanian and English - they were poorly translated as the poet used English rhyming words, and for a year it was my staple toilet fodder - each poem was about the right length.

Now most foreign books are translated into Romanian and if it was as poor as my poetry book, I would explain why Romanians look down on foreign authors - little realizing that t was in fact the poor Romanian translator who was to blame!

What Romanian literature could you recommend I read or study to gain a deeper understanding of Romanians?

Have you ever tried to read Romanian literature? What is your favourite classic?

Do you have a great fact or story about Romanian literature? Share it with our other readers!

Every accepted submission gets a FREE e-book about my life in Romania! Get your copy today!

What Other Visitors Have Said

Click below to see contributions from other visitors to this page...

Still can't find what you are looking for? Use our Google search to help!

Thank you for reading about Romanian literature. Please click here to return to our Romanian culture page.

Click here to return to our Pictures of Romania Home page

New! Comments