Published in 2014 by Contemporary
Literature Press (the online publishing house of the University of Bucharest), Bucharest Tales is part of the New Europe Writers series, the aim of
which is to collect stories and poems relating to a particular city (others are
Tales from Warsaw, Prague, Budapest
and Ljubljana). New Europe Writers’ aim
is to ‘capture the spirit of a united Europe.’
Much of the editorial work and translation was carried out by the
University’s MA Programme for the Translation of the Contemporary Literary
Text.
Editor Lidia Vianu describes Bucharest Tales as ‘a collection of
stories and poems about old and new Bucharest, written by Romanian writers of
two generations, and by foreigners who have come to know Romania and its
capital,’ though while it provides a connecting thread, despite the title
Bucharest does not always appear. The
book presents a mix of new voices and well-established writers such as Dan Lungu and Mircea Cărtărescu, and as there are over
50 contributions in about 260 pages most are short. Some are extracts from longer works, such as
Mike Ormsby’s chapters from Never Mind the Balkans, Here’s Romania. Where appropriate the Romanian and an English
translation are presented in parallel.
Contributions were not always originally written in Romanian: quite a
few were written in English, and a couple are translated from other languages.
With so many voices there is
bound to be a multiplicity of takes on Romania.
If there is an overarching theme it is interrogating past history and
the changes it has wrought: these include the meaning of independence, the
shift from monarchy to fascism to communism, then capitalism and the EU; and
the processes of demolishing and rebuilding both society and the physical
structure of the city. Modernisation is
considered a mixed blessing, bringing with it corruption, wide disparities in
wealth, heavy traffic, homogeneous buildings with a loss of style, fringe
beliefs – in general the atomisation of society. City life can be surreal, and wry humour used
as a coping mechanism. There is some nostalgia
for the old times, when people knew where they were even if they experienced
shortages and less personal autonomy.
It is always valuable to be
exposed to different perspectives, but Bucharest
Tales would have been improved by including more Romanian writing and less by
non-Romanians. The latter may be valid
as a depiction of Bucharest, but it does not always have the feel of an
insider’s lived experience. A few of the
contributors, judging by their biographical details, have had little connection
with Romania, making one wonder to what extent the selection was based on easy
availability of material and permission issues.
Even with those qualifications, the prose aspects are generally
engaging, though some of the poems feel weak in comparison. Nearly all the writers included were still
alive at the time the anthology was compiled, which reinforces the contemporary
feel and Makes Bucharest Tales a
useful window on that contradictory city.
