Doina Ruști: “Nearly Everything I Write Eventually Reaches the Roots of Evil”

Balkanism as Inheritance

IM: In a landmark book on the Balkanism of Romanian literature, the late Mircea Muthu devoted a chapter to your work. His references are to The Phanariot Manuscript, but not only. Do you believe in a Balkan dimension of Romanian literature?

DR: I believe in inheritance, and yes, as someone born on the banks of the Danube, I do feel connected to the Balkan world.

IM: In a recent monograph dedicated to your work, Pompilia Chifu says that one can speak of a folkloric vein in your writing, with a spectrum that includes both Balkanism, in the line of Milorad Pavić, and traditional Romanian myths. Does this observation seem accurate to you?

DR: Her book is the first study to cover almost all of my novels, and the statement is supported by detailed analysis, especially where she discusses my ethnic connections. The folkloric symbolism is Romanian, from the recipes in The Book of Perilous Dishes to the stories inserted in Nas de bulgar (Bulgarian Nose). I believe the imaginative core of Romanians is narrative, largely solar, but also marked by a Bogomil-type dualism. In my case, this vision is connected to my historical and geographical position, to Danubian folklore.

IM: As you say in one interview, many threads bind you to the Balkan world:

DR: “Some of my ancestors came from Montenegro; they were Aromanians, most of them bakers or travellers. Others were Turks who settled in the Romanian Principalities after the Treaty of Adrianople. But there were also many native Romanians, on my paternal grandmother’s side, whom the eighteenth century found as vineyard owners and small merchants, people with resonant names ending in -escu, Southerners, full of Phanariot indulgences.”

IM: In The Phanariot Manuscript, each chapter is connected to a common noun, as a vast receptacle of the Balkan and Romanian world:

DR: “In his head, the name rang out, shouted by her furious mouth, while her green eyes cast down a shower of stars. Tranca’s filthy mouth was Maiorca’s mouth, the one he had kissed. No word had ever entered his blood as deeply as the name she had given him. Leun was his hidden name, which only Tranca, with her snake-tongue, had known how to ferret out. And this name stirred through every nook and cranny, like a breath, like a rustle, like a collective sigh. In his blood, this name had bred its brood, had laid the foundations of a tribe. Clouds floated over the Dâmbovița, and in the distance the elderwood stirred. Leun opened the window. From the river mud, the smell of the city rose to his nostrils, and from the elder bushes, small mouths called out his name.”

— The Phanariot Manuscript, p. 439

IM: It seems to me that here Balkanism is no longer merely atmosphere, but a form of symbolic birth: the name enters history. Is this how you see the connection between name, place, and destiny?

DR: Each chapter of the novel is connected to a word that valorizes an important part of Romanian history. Among them, “amăgire” — illusion, seduction, being led astray — seems especially revealing to me: a word with a long history, originating in Greek and passing through Latin, defining for the metaphysical side of Romanians. In the novel, it is linked to the story of a tailor who travels across the Balkan world, crosses the Danube, and is lured by a song about Bucharest.

IM: This is probably where the imagistic explosion of The Phanariot Manuscript comes from, as well as the epic architectures of your Phanariot trilogy. There is also, unquestionably, a folkloric culture, visible from your earliest novels. Alex Ștefănescu noted, for example, that Zogru is an autochthonous spirit: “Zogru is at once a spirit, a devil, a vampire, a werewolf, something of all of them.” Does Balkanism have more to do with geography or with mentality?

DR: People have often spoken about the Balkan side of Romanian literature, in the sense that geography and neighboring cultures determine mentality and, implicitly, literary themes or manner. As a country situated at the Gates of the Orient and on the border of the Balkan world, it is natural for Romania to have something of each. But we should not forget that the Romanian world also carries Mediterranean inheritances, an entire history of travel north and south of the Danube, as I say in Nas de bulgar and in Ferenike — inheritances that have generated a vast imagery.

The Balkan Imagination

IM: Are you referring to a particular kind of imagination — a mixture of irony, fatalism, and exuberance, as the interwar writers used to say?

DR: Not quite. Exuberance, yes. A certain solar quality, a type of aspiration, even a belief in the future, as absurd as it is powerful, almost fierce. I like to write about the chaotic dimension of the imagination, about that kind of absurdity stored, for instance, in the prototype of the Spân, the hairless trickster of Romanian folklore.

Individual History

IM: In the novel Ferenike, you created a North-Danubian space dominated by phantasms. I am thinking now of the red petals in the mill, the waters, the light of the South, and even the women like balloons carried off by the wind of history. I would like to pause on this last image: is it part of the Balkan imagination? Does the value of immediate history prevail?

DR: “...I saw them lined up along a string that ended in an enormous balloon — a pregnant belly — on which the hand of history had written, in stark black capitals: Saigon.”

— Ferenike, p. 186

It is a vision that represents me. In many of my writings, reality, especially reality with a Zolist potential, develops along the line of the fabulous — not a fabulousness of folkloric origin, but one descended from a series of symbolic associations. Here, the image fixes the tragic nature of a concrete social situation: Ceaușescu’s anti-abortion decree. It is the 1960s, and the entire universe is populated by pregnant women. It is an image from my childhood, a kind of emblem of the early Ceaușescu years.

Femininity and Historical Trauma

IM: The theme of abortion appears in other works of yours as well, for instance in The Ghost in the Mill and even in Zogru. Why did you choose it?

DR: It is a kind of emblem of the communist history in which I had the misfortune to live. Almost everything that happened during the dictatorship revolved around the obsession with birth rates, around the slave-like mechanism branded by Ceaușescu. More precisely, it is about the mutilation of intimacy, about reducing women to their reproductive role. But other evils followed from this: the transformation of social mentalities, propagandistic motherhood, the myth of the heroine mother, all gradually leading to the degradation of the family as an institution.

IM: Perhaps you underline this idea most powerfully in The Ghost in the Mill, where a young schoolteacher is raped, forced to abort, and then thrown into prison because she had an abortion. The scene in which she is arrested, followed by a soldier carrying the plastic bucket with the aborted blood, is emblematic of the theme.

DR: “On the ground, reddened by brick dust, broken ailanthus stems showed here and there, and Rafailă’s fence lay flat on the earth as if a typhoon had passed through. And then, after she looked to the right and to the left, without seeing the people who had stopped by the roadside to watch her go, tears began to slide down her pale cheeks like drops of arsenic. In the evening light, Lucica made her way along the weathered road, and behind her walked the sad soldier, carefully holding in his right hand the blue bucket of her guilt.”

— The Ghost in the Mill, p. 420

Through the character in The Ghost in the Mill, I tried to speak about the essence of communism, but above all about the causes of the misogyny produced by communism. There would be much to say. For me, the 1960s and Decree 770 contain the seeds of a national trauma, which culminated in the fierce and generalized desire to kill the dictator. I say this in several of my novels. I lived through that period and cannot set it aside. Nearly everything I write eventually reaches that place, the roots of evil.

IM: When you say that, I immediately think of Lizoanca, a kind of quintessence of toxic history. Is literature a historical reconstruction? A personal reconstruction? Or merely a vehicle for transmitting a message? I am referring to the feminist message of your writing.

DR: A writer is bound to a history. But literature expresses first and foremost the personality of the person who writes. No matter how mimetic a novelist may be, they leave their imprint on the story. I have always been a rebellious being, somewhat anarchic, a trait I believe all orphans share. My public biography is tied to the recent history of Eastern Europe. I lived under communism, I went through a major political trauma — the assassination of my father — and I took part in the Revolution of December 1989. This experience is not merely a biographical element, but a source of inner authority for my writing.

At the same time, my personality is equally grounded in classical culture, a kind of measure of my discipline.

Classical Culture and Inner Demons

IM: After recounting the assassination of your father in Ferenike, in your recent novel Nas de bulgar you write about your formative years in the Latin and Ancient Greek section of a high school in the 1970s. Among other things, you speak there about the foundation of your education, but also about your encounter with Ferenike. What importance did this encounter have in real life?

DR: Ferenike was initially a name from a Greek lesson. It seemed mobilizing to me, but above all I saw it as a kind of treasure chest, a vessel in which all victories were kept, because Ferenike means “she who bears victory.” In time, however, it became a demon. I came to identify it with the demon of death, the only victorious one in a limited world.

The Women Who Survive

IM: Still, a female demon. There is a strong female line in your books: vulnerable women, but also women who resist, who pass on memory, energy, sometimes even a form of magic. Are you more interested in women’s suffering or in their capacity for survival?

DR: I do not think I treat them as a category. I am a woman, and it seems natural to me to express a vision that is mine and to create characters that complete me. My women are generally survivors, because that is also my nature. But beyond the “source” lies narrative development. Despina, from Homeric, fascinating, seductive, desired by everyone, gradually moves toward the symbolic realm, leaving behind only the myth. Mărmănjica, along a fantastic line, and Lizoanca, along a realistic one, are prototypes of the idea that does not die. Although they seem different, both accumulate a magical and imperishable evil.

IM: Is there a female character you feel especially close to? One you value as a human or symbolic prototype?

DR: Usually, the most recent characters continue to preoccupy me. Since I have only just published Nas de bulgar, I would mention Detustaina. She is a peripheral character, but she has something of my own desire for freedom. I took the name from a Dacian inscription discovered by Pârvan in the Severin area. I liked its archaic sound, but gradually it came to life and became a wandering warrior moving through the Balkan world.

Identity as Story

IM: Speaking of Nas de bulgar: is it a continuation of the novel Ferenike?

DR: Yes, it belongs to the same series of the autobiographical novel. If in Ferenike I spoke about the demon of death, here I speak about the demon of love. But throughout the novel, I also inserted eleven stories about the archaic history of the Romanians.

IM: Why? What was the intention behind these insertions?

DR: Since in Nas de bulgar I continue to narrate my Iași period, it seemed natural to me to add a kind of homage to the Iași school, obsessed with ethnogenesis and with Al. Philippide’s The Origin of the Romanians. In a sense, my first love story was an act of self-discovery and a return to general origins, convinced as I was that personal identity and national identity are decisively connected.

The Art of the Novel

IM: The eleven histories in Nas de bulgar seem at first unrelated to the main narrative thread, only to connect very subtly with the action later on. It strikes me as an unusual narrative technique. So I will ask you: is it still possible to write in an original way? It has been said of you that each of your novels has a different narrative technique. So, if I were to ask someone how one can write something new today, I think you would be the right person.

DR: Every story has its own pattern, which is born as you tell it. There are no recipes. I do not believe in them. But there is a voice belonging to each narrator who, let us not forget, is “someone else” in every novel, shaped by their empathies with the characters and by their invisible ties to the story. Even if all my novels have the same author, each of them has a different narrator. I have said this before: for me, writing is not a mission or some crusade against demons, but a game, an elegant one, which transforms me, as narrator, into a ubiquitous, metamorphic being, an Odysseus whom Homer himself called the polytropic man, precisely because of his epic ability to transform and adapt.

IM: If you were to say what remains, beyond each individual novel, from this passage through history, myth, femininity, and identity, what would be the ultimate stake of your literature?

DR: I believe the stake remains the story. Not history in itself, not trauma, nor myth, but the way all of these are transformed into a story capable of holding you, of reaching an ending worthy of being remembered, and, more than that, of surviving. Literature’s role is to delight, while hypocritically

Read more about Doina Ruști and her work: Doina Ruști

Iulia Pană is a well-known Romanian poet, artist, and photographer whose works have received both national and international recognition. She authored six poetry volumes, among which The Simple Image won the debut prize at the Sighet Festival in 1996 and The Scorpio Night won the Dobrudja Branch of the Romanian Writers’ Association prize (2003). A selection of her poems was translated and published by Adrian Săhlean in 2015, under the title Ebony Bones, now available on Amazon. In 2014, she participated in the BookExpo of America as one of the writers in residence at Ledig House – Omi Art Center, New York. A multi-artistic talent, in 2018, Iulia won the PHOCOS Silk-Road Universities Network special prize for her photographic representation of the Romanian identity. Her works have been selected by curators of painting and photo exhibits in Romania. What makes her literary and visual art unique is her experimentation with synesthesia and what she calls phonopictopoesia, special installations combining non-artistic sound, pictorial image, and poetry, inspired by the pictopoesia experiment of famous avant-garde artists and poets such as Victor Brauner and Ilarie Voronca. Iulia Pană visited Seattle in 2016 when she met her local readers at the University Bookstore in Seattle and in Bellevue.

Interview and translations by Ileana Marin.

IM: What has Iulia Pană done during the COVID pandemic?

IP: I haven’t done much. I hope that it will soon be over, but meanwhile I struggle to overcome my fear, as well as the real, and the imaginary virus. After my trip to Stockholm at the beginning of March when I visited the newly reopened National Museum of Art, I spent two weeks in a strict quarantine monitored by Romanian medical authorities. Then, I became a housewife for a month or so. For the first time in twenty-five years I was on medical leave. Like many others, I have taught my photography classes online. Initially, I was very happy with the stay at home order, thinking I would have time to finish projects I had begun some time ago. However, I was wrong.

From this point on, Iulia’s answer took the shape of a poem.

Something was suspended in the air.

The rhythm of me living and suffering slowed down.

The paradox happened... now, I have time, a lot of time... a time that’s forced upon me but that I cannot use

as I used to dream.

Maybe it can be explained by the fact that my entire life I have read Sci Fi books and I have been waiting for a drastic change, the third scientific, or better said, a robotic revolution... not a global health crisis.

Of course, I have worked a fair bit, but with less enthusiasm.

When in my tiny garden lilies-of-the-valley and white lilac were in bloom, I took pictures of seagulls flying above my yard and landing uneasily on the edge of the apartment buildings nearby, then taking off again as if throwing themselves into the void as suiciders.

I have read (mostly online) and since I am more eyes and hands, I’m using them a lot.

Furthermore, with more time on my hands, I have fixed two laptops and a desktop and archived my photos and videos that reached 15 T.

Even my kitchen has become a lab for creativity and improvisation, but I hope it will be that way for a short time.

If something changed for the better, it is the order that I am pressing myself to maintain as I am going through the objects that have surrounded me for too long, some completely useless, some that deserve keeping or archiving.

I feel that I have somehow overcome the mental blockage in which I have been trapped once I had to isolate myself from the rest of the world. I already wrote two poems.

A Ringing Sound (scroll down for Romanian)

Every night

There is a ringing in my ear on the right

I’ve always believed that I’m directly connected

To a satellite

Over time, I’ve discovered the electric generators next to my home

And parabolic antennas on the apartment building which had risen from concretemeat and ironbones where my childhood’s apricot trees had grown,

Parallel cables had been ringing in my head too long before the burying earth could quiet them

The ringing grew stronger around 5 a.m. when the street was the milky way

of the youth in high velocity fireballs

coming back from their weekend tasks,

seasonal workers in the warehouse with huge chandeliers and long counters

with thousands of glasses ringing for life anew

Today at noon I went out holding a beautifully written permit slip

and the ringing was rolling through the city like a tourist eager to explore

Near the lake, the mall floats on the tree roots of the former park

and disappears on the horizon out at sea stirring a small sand whirl

on the deserted long beach – north mamaia

The evening shade is as thick as the smoke coming out of the black gold refinery,

now cheaper than dirt

When the ringing winds back through the legobrick-like buildings

on the bank of the other lake struggles to get back to me... into the city

The city does not answer

It hides itself in each and every house

It is obvious that the ringing is crystal clear

Close to celestial music

I convince myself that I’m in direct contact

With a satellite.

From high up it keeps track.

Un Țiuit

În fiecare seară înainte de culcare în urechea dreaptă

Am un țiuit

Am crezut tot timpul că am o conexiune directă

La un satelit

Dar în timp am descoperit generatoarele electrice de lângă casă

Și antenele parabolice de pe blocul crescut din carnebeton și oasedefier pe locul caișilor copilăriei,

Cablurile paralele țiuiau și ele demult în capul meu pînă le-au îngropat să-le simtă pamântul

Țiuitul se intensifica pe la 5 dimineața când strada era caleea lactee

pentru tineri cu velocitate mărită în bolizi

întorcându-se de la muncilele lor de weekend

lucrători sezonieri ai halelor cu candelabre uriașe, și tejghele lungi

pe care mii de pahare acum țiuie după viață

Azi am ieșit în miezul zilei din casă cu bilet de voie caligrafiat

și țiuitul se plimbă prin oraș ca un turist curios să-l descopere

Lângă lac, mall-ul levitează pe rădăcinile copacilor din fostul parc

și dispare în orizonul mării ridicând un mic vârtej de nisip

pe plaja pustiită și alungită spre nord –mamaia nord

Seara se schimbă tonalitatea se îngroașă ca fumul de la platforma de

prelucrarea a aurului negru scump, acum mai ieftin ca o bragă

La întoarcere șerpuind prin jocul de lego al blocurilor

de pe malul celuilat lac scapă cu greu înapoi spre mine ..spre oraș

Orașul nu răspunde E ascuns în fiecare casă

E limpede

Țiuitul e atât de clar Aproape o muzică celestă

Mă conving că sunt într-o relație directă

Cu un satelit.

Deasupra el veghează.

89 (scroll down for Romanian)

89 is as close or as far as

the road on foot from the pearl beach at one end of the mamaia resort

to the bakery at the bus terminal in the North tomis district,

the heaven of the summer tourists in the rental rooms

where a savory cheese pie took care of all three meals a day...

In 89 beyond the bakery and apartment buildings there was a vineyard streching up to the lake

and, under the lake, a hidden river supplied water to the city

to the vineyard with golden azalias and to the island in the lake and to the garbage dump

from ovidiu, the village, not the poet,

suddenly a network of streets from the Tartar well

to the lost streets later dug out

by yigru the poet wandering through google maps

for whom 89 is just a number.

89

89 e atât de aproape dar și atât de departe ,

ca drumul pe jos de la plaja perla din mamaia

până la patiseria de la cap de linie tomis nord,

raiul sezoniștilor de la bloc,

unde placinta dobrogeana înlocuia trei mese pe zi ..

În 89 dincolo de patiserie și blocuri era via până la lac

și sub lac , râul ascuns care alimenta tot orașul

Via cu afuzalii aurii și insula de pe lac și groapa de gunoi

de la ovidiu, satul nu poetul

brusc se trasează ramificațiile de la cișmeaua tatarească

până la străzile pierdute și rascolite mult mai târziu

de yigru poetul călător prin harțile google

pentru care 89 e doar un număr.

IM: Thank you, Iulia, for sharing these new poems. What memories from your Seattle visit do you cherish the most?

IP: Seattle… what can I say! One of my most treasured memories. I still recall every day I spent there. The special people I met and I consider friends, the city anchored by its bridges, Chihuly’s glass garden, the Central Public Library with its futuristic architecture, the incredible Pike Place Market, the EMP museum, Microsoft Campus, the Space Needle, the UW, and the UW Bookstore… the immense wheel displaying a dreamlike panorama, and of course the Native Americans from whom I bought an authentic dream catcher. I hope that after this phase of our lives ends, I will be able to come back to Seattle, where thanks to the ARCS team I felt a real woman poet.

More from Iulia Pană

My Black Box

I live in a black box…

With me and my body

The box is small and its cardboard has an uncanny almond scent

In the morning one can peek

through the small holes I dug during long depressive hours while waiting for the rain

The air passes through me and stays glued to the lid of the box

which changes the color into grey

In this temporary house I cannot receive guests… I hardly have enough oxygen for one creature And that is a fly…

Life in the box has its humor…

Locuiesc într-o cutie neagră...
Cu mine şi cu trupul meu
Cutia e mică şi cartonul are un ciudat miros de migdale
Dimineaţa se vede
prin găurile mici scobite cu greu în îndelungi
partide depresive ca şi cum n-aş aştepta decât ploaia
Suflă un aer prin mine... trece şi rămâne lipit pe capacul cutiei
ce îşi schimbă culoarea în gri
În locuinţa asta temporară nu pot primi pe nimeni... abia am oxigen
Pentru o singură fiinţă şi aceea e o muscă...
Viaţa în cutie are umorul ei...

Irina Georgescu is a food writer and author of ‘Carpathia - food from the heart of Romania’. Irina’s work draws on her Romanian and Eastern European heritage, which she explores through food and history. It is her love and commitment to talking about Romanian culinary traditions that made her pursue her dream and write about this heritage. She was born in Bucharest, Romania, and now lives in the UK. ‘Carpathia, food from the heart of Romania’ is published by Interlink Publishing and well as in independent bookshops throughout the US and online.

Are you looking for the perfect Christmas gift? If you buy Carpathia or any other books from the Interlink Publishing links on this page, ARCS will get 20% from the proceeds. THANK YOU! Vă mulțumim!!

Interview by Otilia Baraboi.

O.B. The art of culinary writing is quite recent in Romania. What inspired you to become a food writer? Is this a career you would have chosen in Romania, or was it influenced by your new home in the UK?

I.G.Writing about Romanian cuisine and my family recipes was a 180 degree career change for me, one that was heavily influenced by my new home in the UK. Luckily, I am still able to put to good use the skills developed in my previous marketing career, working for multinational companies and NGOs in Romania. It’s just that now I am devising marketing strategies for myself and my book, and promoting Romanian values, which is far more exciting. Since I moved to the UK more than 10 years ago, I’ve seen what the mentality towards food is and how important it is for people to support their local producers and small businesses. Ethnic food, restaurants and cookery books are a way to popularise not only specific dishes, but cultural values too. People are ready to consume both when they sit down to eat a certain dish. I would say that they are willing to consume more history and contextual facts around a dish, than the dish itself. Things have gone beyond ‘locally sourced’ ingredients, and include ‘locally sourced’ facts from people that are actively part of the culture they write about. I think it is a wonderful way to get to know a country and its people, to perhaps challenge perception while serving a delicious meal. This is what got me going. Romania has a culturally rich cuisine and history and we need to tell people about it.

O.B. How was your book received in the UK, and in the US, despite the pandemic that must have affected your initial launch plans?

I.G. The pandemic has had a huge impact on the sales and promotion plans of the book, but I don’t want to complain. So many people are in a worse situation than this. I am lucky to have had a very good PR team in my publisher’s office in London and they adjusted quickly to the new market. Everything moved online, which suited me perfectly because I live in Wales, hundred of miles away from London, and I had the ideal scenario to be able to contact people through social media and by email, and talk about the book. My efforts at home were amplified by the PR results achieved in London. It doesn’t happen every day, or sadly to every author, to have 4 pages in National Geographic talking about the cuisine in the book. Or to have recipes and interviews in the BBC Good Food magazine, which goes to 9 million people. Or to be shortlisted in the Los Angeles Times and write for newspapers in New York. Despite all this, things got tough. With the social unrest, high unemployment levels and climate change disasters happening across the US, even Amazon de-prioritised the selling of books in favour of more needed goods. It’s an entire chain reaction but hopefully, come November-December, we will see better times.

O.B. Your book speaks a lot to the Romanian diaspora worldwide. Food is a universal language, just like music and the visual arts, it brings people together in an unmediated way, regardless of their origin. Did you have this audience in mind as well when you wrote Carpathia?

I.G.There was a lot to take into consideration when I wrote the book. I knew that there must be people like me, living abroad, missing Romanian dishes and finding comfort, and a sort of safe place in cooking traditional dishes. It wasn’t a deliberate thought to actually write for them, it was more of an organic development, it was first of all the way I felt. It became apparent that the book also talked to families who moved abroad generations ago, and it tapped into a pool of people with deeper emotional roots and connections to Romania’s cuisine and culture. I get a lot of messages like this and every single one gives me goosebumps. To my mind, the book is not written for Romanians in Romania. At home, we all know how to make sarmale. My first intention was to write for a public who doesn’t know anything about Romania, and wanted to learn more. My second intention was to challenge how Romanians were perceived in the UK and offer people an alternative message to what they could read or watch in the media. In a way, this helped on a personal level too, to find my place in my adoptive society and cemented the reasons to hold my head high when talking about Romanians. I wanted to tell the world about our beautiful Romanian traditional costumes, hand painted pottery, Oltenian kilims, UNESCO sites and family values through a set of recipes. I deliberately kept the recipes traditional, so if people visit Romania, they will be able to recognise them on the menus. It’s a bridge between a book and real life tourism that I hope can bring a lot of advantages to Romania.

O.B. Can you tell us more about the title Carpathia, Food from the Heart of Romania? What or where is Romania’s heart and how does it relate to its food?

I.G. I think that Romania’s culinary heart is defined by the Carpathian mountains and by the landscape they shape and dominate. They define our historical regions and the microclimates for local produce. Where would our dairy artisans be without being able to herd their flocks and herds through the rich pastures up and down the mountains? And what about Mangalitsa and Bazna pigs in Transylvania, bred for delicious lardo and charcuterie which wouldn’t have been possible without the Austro-Hungarian dominance of this part of Romania. The Carpathian mountains kept at bay three major cultures and political powers right here on Romania’s territory: Ottomans (with their synthesis of Arabic, Middle Eastern and Greek cultures), Hapsburg (with their Germanic and also Hungarian cultures) and Russia (with its Slavic, Central Asian cultures). Migration and trade routes crossing the mountains contributed to the establishment of so many diverse communities: Armenian, Jewish, Macedonian, Serbian, Bulgarian and so on. This is the heart of Romanian cuisine and one way or another, it beats in the Carpathian mountains.

O.B. What makes the Romanian cuisine unique despite the many influences it distills in the recipes you included in your book?

I.G. I often say that Romania’s uniqueness lies in the diversity and resourcefulness of its cuisine. There are some intriguing elements. Anyone flicking through the book will notice the number of dishes that use cornmeal, from breakfast to dessert, through starters and main courses, polenta is simmered, shaped, layered, stuffed or fried. An important element in our cookery is bors - this fermented ingredient that also gives the name to numerous broths, and not necessarily made with beetroot. Another thread in the story of our cuisine is the Ottoman influence and dishes that are actually cooked using pork. Our beloved pies, plăcinte, especially those rolled by hand and layered, without using filo pastry, are pretty much baked as in Roman times. In fact, this whole world of plăcinte, be it savoury or sweet, is incredibly varied and I don’t think that there are many countries with this wealth of recipes and variations. Even if I couldn’t include a recipe in the book for each type, I was at least able to talk about them and explain their part in our cuisine.

O.B. In your introduction you talk about your childhood growing up in Bucharest during communism. The scarcity of basic foods prompted your mother to improvise and be a real „wizard in the kitchen”. Can you think of three of her recipes that you loved as a child?

I.G. I think that her food was delicious mainly because of her cooking method, very often dishes were started on the stove and finished in the oven. I do this in the book quite often. Slow cooking was also something that suited her busy schedule, because while the food was cooking, she was able to do other tasks around the house. We didn’t waste any food, any leftovers went into something else, such as left over mashed potatoes mixed with freshly cooked polenta. The green tomatoes, gogonele, that didn’t make it into jars to be pickled, were turned into jam. Or any left over dough from baking cozonac, our Christmas or Easter bread, was rolled like a flat bread, topped with left over filling and baked for a delicious snack.

O.B. Can you explain how did your parents’ “work ethic”, especially your mother’s “culinary ingenuity” shaped your values in life?

I.G. The basic and simple idea that one needs to work hard to achieve something shaped my life. I write in the book at some point that dad didn’t accept the saying ‘she did her best’ or ‘that was her best effort’ if my efforts were not fully using my potential. So I grew up in this environment where I had to understand what it meant to stay committed to doing something, to persevere and try harder. In Romania, children were and still are pushed to overachieve all the time, and I wasn’t an exception. So as a grown up, I had to channel this energy towards something that was important and relevant to me, as a person, and to my life. And that something was writing this book. I couldn’t have done it without the delightful years spent as an ‘apprentice’ to my mum, helping her in the kitchen, going shopping for ingredients together, judging the freshness of the produce, checking the dishes for seasoning and flavour, deciding if they were ready or needed a bit longer in the oven. I was there mainly just to be around her, but I learned a lot about cooking by doing that, and also about being organised, always having a plan B if something went wrong, and staying in control in the kitchen. So I knew I had all the skills I needed to write this book.

O.B. I love how your book is structured around the cycles of nature and seasonal recipes paired with beautiful pictures of landscapes with changing colors, from different regions of the country. The four seasons inform indeed the creative adaptability of the Romanian cuisine. What special recipes from the book do you like to cook in the fall?

I.G. I like so many dishes that I can’t possibly pick just one. Fall is perfect for those comforting, rich Romanian dishes such as smoked ham hock with butterbeans or bors with smoked sausages or meatballs (ciorbă de perișoare). Sauerkraut and caraway seed broth with potatoes is another of my comfort foods, and also the vegetarian gherkin stew served with polenta is absolutely delicious. Of course, I am always looking forward to sarmale, stuffed sauerkraut leaves, in December. If I find quince at the market, I always make jam in October-November or compotes - there is nothing as soothing and light as a warm compote after dinner on a chilly evening.

O.B. Similar to other East European countries, Romania has an ancestral tradition of fermented and pickled foods that you included in your book. Besides its health benefits, can you share why is this practice dear to your family, and to many Romanians who keep it going?

I.G. It is a good question, with all the fresh produce in the shops regardless of the seasons, why do we still want to preserve food? ‘Because it is what people do in the autumn’- I can hear many of us saying. Home made pickles and preserves are tastier if mum made them for us, or if we made them for our family. It’s the satisfaction of eating something made by ourselves, following a family recipe, that we learned from our parents and helped them prepare so many times before. I think this is why we do it. It’s traditional.

O.B. What has been your Romanian comfort food during these difficult times of home isolation due to the pandemic?

I.G. I live in rural Wales, so isolation is a lifestyle choice - haha. As a food writer, I always need to test recipes, send e-newsletters and promote the book, so I have been cooking and baking a lot, recipes that I was able to share on social media. I’ve found myself cooking and baking more and more with cornmeal, polenta, whether for a comforting breakfast or lunch. It was a good thing especially during the massive panic-buying that happened at some point. All the flour was sold out but plenty of cornmeal was left on the shelves. Lucky me.

O.B. What are your future plans and projects?

I.G. Quite a few but travelling has made them more difficult to progress. They are all related to Romania and our cookery, since this is what I want to do in the next few years. I am also looking to start gourmet groups to take to Romania, where I can be their food-guide. I would also love to be able to include wine tours and talk about Romanian wine. At the same time, I need to come to the US to meet and cook for people who have been buying the book and supporting me on social media.

Pictures by Jamie Orlando Smith Photography:

1. Irina Georgescu

2. Carpathia (book cover)

3. Brașov City

4. Romanian Winter

5. Romanian Pottery

6. Ciorbă de Perișoare/Meatballs Borș with Lovage

7. Sărmăluțe/Stuffed Grape Leaves

7. Alivenci /Moldovan Polenta Cakes with Cheese and Dill

Producer, film director and storyteller Bogdan Darev moved to Seattle from Bulgaria 25 years ago. He is still very connected to his heritage and recognizes the role of film in preserving and celebrating cultures across the globe. His most recent documentary film endeavor “Kaval Park” is far from about and for Bulgarians only, but an important document of authenticity for all cultures. In addition to documentary films, Bogdan continues to express himself in music videos, photography, and literature. His most recent project is the virtual platform FILMABEE, a curated boutique experience for movies, art and culture.

Bogdan was interviewed by Otilia Baraboi

O.B. How has the pandemic impacted your daily routine and artistic process?

B.D. The pandemic forced me to finally find the time for yoga, meditation, writing and taking care of my mental health. All of my freelance work dried up overnight so I stayed home and suddenly found myself carrying a lot less stress. I decided to teach myself web design instead of waiting for funding to hire designers and programmers, and on May 24^th, with the help of a friend, we launched www.filmabee.com - a curated boutique experience for movies, art and culture. I also focused on finishing my first novel which started as a screenplay a decade ago. This level of inspired productivity would be hard if it wasn’t for my passion to connect to human kind through cinema. The pandemic only motivated me to press onward. While I stayed informed, limiting drastically any exposure to social media gave me a peace of mind.

O.B. Tell us a bit about your new project FILMABEE, how is it different from other streaming platforms and sites? At a time when we are starting to talk about „streaming wars”, why should our audience choose this experience over the many others out there?

B.D. FILMABEE started from an act of kindness. And from a direct connection with the audience of my film “There.” In 2019 we toured 18 cities in the USA with the film. After our third city, San Francisco, the audience wanted to know where they can buy the poetry book by the poet featured in the film. I called him up - he was in his mid 70s, and he said he had a few copies he could mail overseas. I smiled on the other side of the phone and asked him for permission to republish his poetry. We agreed that 70% of all proceeds would go to him. That summer I took a check to him for nearly 800 dollars and presented him with his republished poetry book signed by audiences from all over the USA. He was so moved that he dug out from the attic more poetry and used the money to publish his second book. Both will be available through our shop soon.

This experience changed me profoundly. The gesture and support of the audience moved me deeply. That’s how FILMABEE was born. Out of giving. As cliché as it sounds, the idea is that “beauty is in the eye of the Beholder”, so guests to the site can name the price they pay for a movie, and eventually items in the shop. We’re completely transparent and show you where the money goes - anywhere between 70% and 90% go to the filmmakers, writers, arts organizations and artists. For example, the Bulgarian Cultural and Heritage Center of Seattle, who produced the movie “This Baba,” are donating 80% of all proceeds to the main character – Penka, a retired former teacher and Bulgarian grandma in her late seventies living in America.

The site is modeled after a magical being - the bee. I figured we couldn’t go wrong with such an approach. The idea here is that we all bring our own audience to the collective so, naturally, we all benefit from a cross-cultural pollination.

Lastly, all of our content is curated to give you a one-of-a-kind boutique experience centered around the triad - explore, create & inspire. We realize time is a commodity so we will always honor your time focusing on quality over quantity. Our goal is to make FILMABEE a destination where you get to have some fun, while pondering on the bigger questions in life.

O.B. You presented two of your films „This Baba” and „There” at the Romanian Film Festival in Seattle. FILMABEE hosts a selection of Romanian and East European films curated by the festival. Can you comment on this partnership? How has it been received by the Bulgarian community?

B.D. Since the conceptualization stage of FILMABEE, I’ve wanted to approach the Romanian Film Festival in Seattle to collaborate. I’ve been actively involved in my own community since 2011, but have come to realize that we must all band together around threads that weave a collective human experience. That’s not to say we don’t celebrate our own cultures. It just means we actively focus on sharing these celebrations.

The Bulgarian community came in big numbers to the premiere of “There” at the Festival. I’m sure they will come again. We just can’t give up and have to make sure the Festival happens again in 2020.

O.B. Do you see this partnership evolve into an even more inclusive project with other East European communities joining you? Back in Europe, at least in Romania, we grew up ignoring what our neighbors were doing, most likely rejecting the pressure to be part of a monolithic identity, the so-called „Eastern Bloc”.

B.D. Yes, the bee is all inclusive. I imagine our love for film and culture will bring around like minded community leaders. However, the hive requires collaboration and a common purpose that reaches beyond the spotlight of being on one kind of a community. The purpose of giving to others is the highest purpose to fulfill here on Earth. It is the purpose that unites us all.

O.B. When you presented your documentary „There” at the Romanian Film Festival, many viewers from the Romanian community identified with your story. Is it because we share the same cultural ethos and Romania went through a similar wave of immigration that dried out the country’s resources, or is there more to it?

B.D. There is the shared destiny of the migrant. But the film also explores the themes of forgiveness and love, and dives into a philosophical discourse. People from as far as Japan and China love it, as well as Americans who ask me, “Are all Bulgarians so deep and spiritual like the people you filmed?”

O.B. What were you looking for and what have you found in your native country when you returned after 23 years of being in the US?

B.D. I went without expectations and was gifted the most beautiful revelation of an experience. My shepherd’s flute teacher invited me to play with him in an outdoor concert at the seaside. Over 300 people in the audience were gathered to honor our folklore. He asked me to say a few words. I looked at all of those faces - old, young and younger still, and realized that all those years I didn’t miss Bulgaria as a territory; I missed her children - the people.

O.B. Your father is a central figure in this quest for what you lost in your fatherland, as is your paternal grandfather. There is a powerful moment when you tell your father about a vision where you go into your grandfather’s tomb, you lie down next to his lifeless body and ask him “Have you ever told your son that you loved him?” Can you comment on this transgenerational broken chain of communication?

I don’t know if it’s a broken chain of communication or just an evolution of communication. In the end, it’s about practicing understanding. And when you set a goal to try to understand the other, then you expand, and with you, the world blossoms. Filmmaking is perhaps here to help us in this evolutionary step.

O.B. On the plane going back to Bulgaria, after 23 years of exile, you wrote a poem that you quote at the end of your documentary. It begins with “I return to Death/to my homeland.” Can you share it and tell us about the use of poetry in your film? Poetry has become an increasingly hermetic art nowadays, considering our digitalized lifestyle reduced our capacity to focus more than eight seconds, as some studies say.

B.D. The use of poetry happened by chance, but my love for mixing poetry and visuals was born after seeing Tarkovsky’s film “The Mirror.” The Russian voice reading poetry to the documentary footage of soldiers hypnotized me, and to this day this movie inspires my work. As for “There,” people responded very favorably to the three poems which the poet reads in his own voice. His lyrical voice is perhaps a big part of why audiences fall in love with the poems. Americans love the English translation, which only brings me joy and hope that we can translate the entire poetry book.

I shared this poem with my sister and mother over a Skype meeting I recorded, and that’s how it made it into the movie. It was shocking that it was written on the flight THERE, 23 years in the making, and it beautifully foreshadowed the inner journey.

O.B. Besides poetry, music is central in all your films, from “This Baba”, to “There” and the documentary you currently work on, “Kaval Park”. I have seen you many times playing the shepherd flute in Ravenna Park. Can you tell us about the role of music in your life and films?

B.D. As a child in Bulgaria, I had three or four piano lessons before poverty forced us to sell the piano. Then, I started to play the shepherd’s flute at age 36. By then I had convinced myself I could never learn music because I’m starting so late. Just a few years later my mind is so much more musical than before, it’s hard to believe. To play an instrument is one of the greatest gifts you can give to yourself and the world. Perhaps we can encourage children to be creators of music, rather than just consumers of it.

O.B. What changes do you wish to see in this world, in the aftermath of the COVID crisis?

B.D. The crisis has been here for some decades now. The masks we are forced to wear now point to the invisible masks we have been wearing all along. The same masks fitted on us by our parents, institutions, heritage and society wishing the best for us. But what remains when we take the mask of nationalism off? What happens when a democrat takes off the mask? A republican? A white man? A black female?

It’s time we take off our masks. And it will hurt because we believe those masks to be us. So, metaphorically speaking, humanity could benefit from the shedding of masks. Have you noticed how wearing a mask is now directing us to look at each other via the spiral of the eyes? The moving distraction of the mouth has been covered. Time to gaze into those eyes across. To explore. To connect. To be present.

Lucian Ban is a jazz pianist born in Romania, currently living in New York. He studied jazz at the Bucharest Music Academy and composition with renowned Romanian classical composer Anatol Vieru. In 1999 he moved to New York City where he graduated in Jazz & Contemporary Music at The New School University. Ban is a prolific jazz musician known for his amalgamations of Transylvanian folk with improvisation, for his mining of 20th Century European classical music with jazz, and for his pursue of a modern chamber jazz ideal. His music has been described as “emotionally ravishing” (Nate Chinen, New York Times/WBGO), a “triumph of emotional and musical communication” (All About Jazz), “Unorthodox but mesmerizingly beautiful” (The Guardian) and as holding an “alluring timelessness and strong life-force” (Downbeat Magazine). He has performed with a who’s who list of contemporary jazz musicians such as Abraham Burton, Nasheet Waits, Louis Sclavis, Mat Maneri, John Surman, Billy Hart, Alex Harding, Barry Altschul, Gerald Cleaver, Bob Stewart, Badal Roy, Tony Malaby, Sam Newsome, Ralph Alessi, Jen Shyu, John Hebert, Eric McPherson, Theo Bleckmann, among others. Together with his collaborators, Ban recorded more than seventeen albums which received outstanding reviews.

His most recent project—Transylvanian Folk Songs: The Bela Bartók Field Recordings (2020)—impressed the public at large and the music critics, even though it did not benefit from tours and promotion concerts as it was launched in May this year during the COVID pandemic. Kevin Whitehead, the NPR music critic, wrote: “There’s mystery in that bare-bones music and in much else on the album Transylvanian Folk Songs. But there’s clarity to it as well. Lucian Ban, John Surman and Mat Maneri listen to those vintage melodies as closely as they do to each other, making those old bones dance one more time.”

Visit Lucian Ban’s website for news, video, links, etc:

www.lucianban.com

Interview by Ileana Marin.

IM: I watched with great interest the panels you moderated online with jazz festival organizers and critics for the Romanian Cultural Institute of London. One thing that transpired from all participants including you was how much all of you miss live events. I know that you flew to Romania at the beginning of March this year and you had to go through a two-week quarantine. What did you do during those weeks and the following ones? Were you able to study, to compose, to work on future projects?

LB: Thanks for the invitation, Ileana. To answer your question, like everyone else, I was confined, trying to cope with the whole situation. As an artist whose entire life was built around performing for live audiences around the world, it’s been disheartening to see the tragedy around, but also amazing to see the hope in face of all the challenges. This was a complete shelving of my life and career. So, yes, I moderated some conversations with peers from my community: presenters, festival directors, musicians, and critics.We tried to do some work from home, but I have to say, it’s not easy. Developing projects exclusively online is not the answer to an art like jazz that is based on communal interplay and people getting together on stage and improvising. Hopefully, normal life will resume and we will be able to perform again in front of live audiences soon.

IM: This year in May, I read the news about the release of your album “Transylvanian Folk Songs - The Bela Bartók Field Recordings”, that features Mat Maneri, John Surman, and yourself. Under normal circumstances you would have toured to promote the CD released by Sunnyside Records. Have you conceived an alternative strategy engaging digital tools? How?

LB: Transylvanian Folk Songs -Bela Bartók’s Field Recordings was scheduled for release by Sunnyside Records way before the pandemic began, almost a year in advance. The album was scheduled for release on May 15 and it was released that day.I have never ever in my life thought or imagined of releasing such an important recording in times like these. Then, I looked at the world, at our community, and beyond, and I saw so much tragedy, lives lost, and pain, and it felt very strange to have the album released in the middle of a pandemic. But, I have also seen hope and people selflessly giving their best to get through this whole madness and I think of these folk songs that Bartók collected more than a century ago, from 1909 to 1917, actually during another pandemic, the Spanish Flu. When I listen to the folk songs of the Romanians in Transylvania, I hear the same enduring human feelings of love, pain, loss, and hope. On the cover of the album, there is a peasant woman’s photo taken by Bartók in the village of Săvârșin in Arad County, in the western part of Transylvania. In her eyes, I see an expression of resilience in the face of tragedy.

Now, about promoting the album, the tours… a lot of the promotion is actually done by the label and I was amazed by the tremendous response: the album was reviewed in the Financial Times in England, in Brazil, and on online platforms. Later, the NPR did a feature on the album, which was picked up by hundreds of stations syndicated throughout the United States. All this exposure pushed the album on the Billboard charts. I have never had an album on the Billboard charts at classical crossover. Suddenly, this album—very improvisational, yet chamber music like contemporary improvised jazz— it’s right up there with Andrea Bocelli, Rod Stewart with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. So, life is strange . . .

Aside from the reviews, in Jazz Times and various other magazines, I was thoroughly impressed with the feedback from listeners, which was stunning. We had a video trailer for the album that featured archival footage of Romaniansand Hungarians dancing from back in the day, probably from the 20s and 30s, and we mixed it with some of the footage from the concert that produced the album. In just one month, it had over 5,000 views. I couldn’t be happier with the response. Maybe, the same things that the songs were about are alive today, and they help us get through the pandemic. Transylvanian Folk Songs -The Bela Bartók Field Recordings reimagines nine folk songs selected from the over 3,400 songs that Bartok collected in Transylvania over eight or nine years. The original set of Bartók recordings is still, to this day, the biggest collection of traditional folk music from Transylvania ever done by a person. It has been a joy and honor for me to be able to work with Mat Maneri, my old partner and collaborator for more than a decade, and the legendary John Surman from the UK. I hope people will listen to this album and that it will bring some sort of solace in these difficult times.

IM: Performers, actors, music players have repeatedly talked about how rewarding it is to perform live and see their audience’s appreciation, joy, and engagement. I was lucky to have seen you and your band performing and to have experienced, as part of your public, the intense energy and emotions of the response. What does it mean to you to be in direct contact with your public? How much do you miss this contact?

LB: As musicians and artists, we perform in front of an audience. It’s what we do; it’s our life, it’s how we make a living. Being able to play in front of an audience, interact, and react to the audience it’s one of the most important parts of who we are. Sure, we can play at home, practice, and rehearse,but, as you can imagine, even rehearsals cannot take place now as we are all scattered miles away. There were during these past months instances in which people were able to play together, if they share the same house, and their partners or roommates or others get together in front of their door in the street and do a little playing. But aside from that, virtually all playing together has completely stopped. Concerts are canceled, tours are canceled. Venues are closed, theatres are closed. Broadway announcedit is closed all the way to the end of the year; Chicago announced that all festivals scheduled for 2020 are canceled, too. Our tours—I was supposed to tour in October throughout the United States, including the East Coast, Midwest, and coming to the West Coast, to Seattle, actually to Earshot, with Mat Maneri DUST Quartet—won’t happen either. I think Earshot Jazz Festival will be in all digital format only this year. Performing online on Zoom is far away from what live music is. Contact, I argue, is an essential trait of human behavior: it is not only musicians, actors or other artists who depend on human contact. It’s everybody. We are all affected, we are looking at 2021 and hope things will get better by then.

This situation is probably a very good reminder of how important it is for musicians to interact with their audience and for audiences to experience live music. I still remember the amazing concert we—Elevation with Mat Maneri and Gavril Țărmure, the singer from Transylvania —had at the Seattle Museum of Art, part of the Earshot Jazz Festival in partnership with ARCS. I remember the intensity of that concert: the audience was electrified. It was such an honor to have as a special guest, the legendary Billy Hart joining us on drums. All of that it’s gone for the time being. I am looking forward to getting back to experience music, theater, and performing arts as they were intended to be, in interaction with the audience in a live situation.

IM: Nowadays it seems that streaming has become one-recipe fits all arts: symphonic orchestras stream concerts, film producers, and film festival organizers stream movies, theatre companies do the same, etc. What about jazz? Have you and your band considered streaming live?

LB: Yes, as we all have seen, streaming has exploded since the pandemic. I want to clarify something from the beginning: it is not technologically possible today anywhere in the world to perform unless you are in the same room with other musicians. All of the shows and videos that people see streaming are falling into two categories: they are either recorded before or recorded and then edited to look like the band is performing live. It’s still a group effort, but everybody recorded their part at home and then it was mixed together with all the little screens etc. They are broadcasted as videos, but they are not live performances. As of now, the latency of Internet connection, which varies from one location to another, makes it impossible—especially for jazz music, who improvise and react to other musicians—to perform live and stream. Streaming, although it is the only way we can now be present for our audiences and fans, and still be able to make music with other musicians, is not a long-term answer in my opinion.

I also want to stress another aspect: streaming andartists being paid. This is an issue that is not necessarily related to the pandemic: the fact that Google, Facebook, YouTube, and all other media platforms are basically stealing musicians’ works without paying them. These are old problems which have just been aggravated by the pandemic because everybody is posting videos online, on YouTube, without getting paid for it. About four years ago, many artists petitioned the Congress and tried to discuss these issues. Aside from the core of the problem of the artistic endeavor itself, there is also the economic aspect of it.

Nonetheless, I’m looking into how we can develop meaningful projects within the confines of the pandemic crisis. For example, I will present with Mat Maneri video material about our work on George Enescu, over more than a decade. Mat and I started working on Enescu Reimagined in 2009, and we premiered it at the Enescu Festival in Bucharest. Then, our duo traveled the world and we started performing some Enescu pieces as well. Two years ago and last year, we premiered a remake, a radical re-imagining of Enescu’s Oedipe opera. What we’ll do for online viewers is to play thirty minutes of music with footage from Enescu Reimagined, from duo concerts around the world, and selections from the Oedipe opera along with commentary from myself and Mat on our process and the music of Enescu. You can watch this archived show here.

This series, Enescu Soirees online, is hosted by the Romanian Cultural Institute in New York. I’m looking into the possibility of doing a remote project in the fall: another installment of Retracing Bartók project that produced the Transylvanian Folk Songs album.

I’m aware that streaming is the only answer for now and we’ll have to make do with it, but, in the long run, it doesn’t have the depth required for the musical experience.

IM: In 2010, you and John Hebert launched the Enesco Re-Imagined CD. Last year you shared with me the news about the Oedipe Redux international success, a re-working of Enesco’s opera, arranged by you and Mat Maneri. It seems that George Enescu is a recurrent presence in your work. What do you find in his music that attracts you?

LB: Indeed, it seems that there’s a recurrence in approaching projects that deal with Enescu’s music. I first started working with his work in 2008 when I received a commission from the George Enescu Festival in Bucharest to reimagine some of his music as contemporary jazz. This was also the beginning of my collaboration with Mat Maneri and John Hebert. I’d say the answer tour projects lies in Enescu’s exquisite music that allowed us to reimagine it using improvisation, and a jazz approach and sensibility. His work is not only brilliant, but it’s also very rich and even improvisatory in a way. He is really known for the extraordinary detail in which he notated the violin score, which came out of his ability to internalize the way folk violin players would play. So, he was not far from the idea of improvisation. Besides, his music is very modern. Enescu is part of the 20th century developments in classical music and he synthesized the late romantic music, Wagner, and folk music in a singular and utterly original vision. Enescu’s music was very inspiring, as was our work with it.

After improvising a duo section in Enescu Re-imagined, Mat and I both deeply wanted to continue working as a duo as it felt so good and we had an instantaneous chemistry. We recorded an album for ECM Records – Transylvanian Concert (link – HERE ) and that album put us on the international map and we started touring all over the world ever since (including playing Seattle Earshot Jazz Festival in 2016. We played all over the US and Europe, including in South America and Israel. Right after winding down the Enescu Re-imagined tour, Mat and I discussed how much we would love to approach Enescu’s only opera, Oedipe. We pursued that project for eight years before we were to do it. In 2018, we premiered it at Lyon Opera, a co-production of Lyon Opera and Romanian Cultural Institute and was part of the official Romanian-French Cultural Season. Last year, we had concerts in Brussels, Strasbourg, Hague, Amsterdam, and Luxembourg. It was a tremendous experience.We worked with an extraordinary cast of musicians and singers. We had two singers singing several parts from the opera: the multi-award winning Theo Bleckmann singing the part of Oedip and several other characters in the opera; and the amazing singer Jen Shyu singing the Sphinx and, again, other characters. We also had John Hebert on bass, Tom Rainey on drums, Ralph Alessi on trumpet; and from France the legendary bass clarinet player, Louis Sclavis. It was both a success, and an amazing experience to be able to perform Oedipe Redux, our take on Enescu’s opera, night after night. We recorded it in Amsterdam and we plan to document the work on an album. I feel blessed that I was able to rediscover Enescu’s genius and his works, and to work on his music. His writing is very close to the sensibility of jazz and improvisation and this is the reason Mat and I continue to work with his music. As I said, it’s a blessing. I hope in some small way we are able to share the genius of Enescu’s music to the world at large. As Yehudi Menuhin said, the twenty-first century will be the century of Enescu. I truly hope for the same.

IM: You performed in Seattle twice in recent years. Like many others who attended the 2017 “Songs from Afar” concert, I remember your group’s great performance and Mr. Țărmure’s impressive voice and appearance. What memory do you have of that event and Seattle?

LB: I actually performed in Seattle more than twice over the past 10 years. I performed in Cornish College Main Hall, at the Good Shepherd Place, in a club… I forgot the name. I also performed at the Seattle Museum of Art, part of the Earshot Festival, co-produced with ARCS. This concert was actually the most intense and the most fulfilling event for us, because it was a special project. I was able, with the help of ARCS, to bring the full quintet Elevation, a group I have worked with for more than 10 years, as well as two other guests: my old collaborator Mat Maneri and a special guest from Transylvania, the amazing singer Gabriel Țărmure. Before coming to Seattle, the group I founded with the saxophone player Abraham Burton, had concerts and tours in Europe and the US but mostly on the East Coast. In 2016 we released our second album with Elevation, Songs from Afar, featuring special guests Mat Maneri on viola and Transylvanian folk singer Gavril Tarmure. The prestigious jazz magazine Downbeat published a 5* “masterpiece review and named Songs from Afar BEST ALBUM OF THE YEAR in 2016. The album is a mix of modern jazz originals combined with traditional Transylvanian carols and folk songs sung by Gavril with the band. He’s like a national treasure: he knows songs that I, who grew up in the same area in Transylvania around Cluj, Bistrița, and was interested in Romanian music, had not heard before. This gives a sense of the richness of the Romanian folklore.

Gavril, who runs one of the best and most dynamic private arts centers in Romania that functions in a restored synagogue in Bistrița made a major contribution to the album: he has a stunning voice and an unflinching love for these songs, which he has sung throughout his life. He joined our project after one of our concerts with Elevation, when his daughter asked him to sing some carols for us. While he was singing, I saw what impact he had on Abraham and John who had tears in their eyes. We knew that we wanted to do something with these songs and Gavril. He recorded a cappella several songs and sent them to us. We went into the studio and did the album Songs from Afar. So, Gavril came to Seattle due to ARCS’ efforts. I still remember the electricity in the room, the intensity, the reaction of the audience to Gavril performing with Billy Hart, one of the true legends of jazz, alongside Mat, Abraham and Brad Jones.

I will always remember that evening and talking to the people after the concert and, just spending time with you, guys, was such a treat. You know, aside from the tragedy of it, this is the hardest part of this pandemic: not being able to perform for or with such an audience.

Thanks again for having us there in 2016. I truly hope we will be able to come back to Seattle soon.

Robert Horton is a member of the National Society of Film Critics and was a longtime film critic for Seattle Weekly, the Everett Herald, and Film Comment. He teaches at Seattle Film Institute and in 2016 enjoyed a Fulbright Specialist visit to Romania. His books include Frankenstein (Columbia University Press) and Billy Wilder: Interviews (University Press of Mississippi) as well as the zombie-Western graphic novel Rotten (Moonstone Books). In 2014 he ended a 10-year run as the curator of the Magic Lantern film-discussion program at the Frye Art Museum. He blogs on movies at The Crop Duster (

https://roberthorton.wordpress.com

); his Twitter handle is @citizenhorton. In 2012 he curated the Museum of History & Industry’s “Celluloid Seattle: A City at the Movies” exhibit. In recent years he has served on critics’ juries in Odesa, Ljubljana, Mannheim-Heidelberg, and Brooklyn.

Robert Horton was interviewed for Stories Off the Wall by Otilia Baraboi

OB: What is your daily routine these days? What is the highlight of your life in quarantine?

RH: I’m strict about keeping regular sleeping hours, but that’s been true for many years, because as a self-employed person I have to arrange my own time. So each day I work on writing, answer emails, take a walk, cook meals. My wife and I do a New York Times puzzle together every day, and started German lessons online. We usually watch a movie in the evening. So far the highlight has been cataloguing my DVD collection on a spreadsheet—another activity my wife and I could do together!

OB: Do you ever feel trapped between the walls of your home and if so, what do you do to overcome these difficult moments?

RH: We live in a small apartment with our cat, so it is definitely too small at times. I rely on walking, and if I need to sit quietly and read or write (my wife works from home), I sometimes go to the “spare room,” which is my car parked on the street.

OB: Have you started a new project under quarantine, or are you doing any other “deep work”, such as finishing an old manuscript?

RH: I am going to publish a novel on Kindle, which I wrote during the last year, and I’m trying out some different kinds of writing as well.

OB: What has become essential for you now?

RH: Walking, definitely. Adaptability and patience. Healthy food. Reading.

OB: You are a regular contributor to the Scarecrow Video Blog. Have films and the film community remained essential? What do you do to keep connected to your peers?

RH: I volunteer my contributions because I want to help keep Scarecrow in people’s minds. It is also a way for me to keep my voice on film active, during a time when theaters are closed. I also support the idea of the movies that are “opening” online, with distributors sharing some of the revenue with shuttered local theaters such as the Grand Illusion, Northwest Film Forum, SIFF, and even Scarecrow itself. I am also helping organize a project with the website Parallax View, which will gather past writings of Seattle film critics.

OB: You are also a Board Member of Scarecrow Video, our beloved Seattle-based video store that is in fact the largest independent video store in the country. Their collection has more than 120, 000 individual titles, among which quite an impressive selection of Romanian Films. This is the largest library of videos in the world. Just like all video stores pushed out of business by Amazon and Netflix, they had a rough time before becoming a non-profit initiative. How are things going now and what can the cinephile community do to raise awareness of their important mission and help them navigate through this crisis?

RH: They are still having a rough time, and of course the pandemic has made things worse. One way to re-frame our thinking about a place like Scarecrow in this age of streaming is to re-articulate the importance of physical media. We should all be skeptical about a world where content exists only in a cloud or online, which raises serious questions about who is controlling information, and how certain movies, or books, or history, can be made to vanish if it suits the purposes of the powerful. At Scarecrow we are maintaining the educational component of the place itself; in the last two years I have organized “Scarecrow Academy,” which is a series of screening-discussion sessions.

OB: There is a lot of pressure to be present online, either as an organizer of virtual events, or as a participant. What do you make of this new daily reality? Have you been trying to resist it?

RH: I am never sure where the line is with this. On the one hand, I have used Zoom in recent weeks to attend a birthday party, have a professional meeting (part of the purpose of which was to make sure I knew the basics of Zoom for remote-teaching this summer), and to talk to family. It seems reasonable to embrace something new if it is useful. On the other hand, I don’t own a smartphone, because I seem to be able to live the kind of life I want to live without one, and I have no desire to be available to everyone always. In that sense, I guess I’ve been resisting for a while! But I am easily drawn into Facebook and Twitter, and I question the value of those, even though I feel I need them for my career.

OB: After the first wave of film festival cancellations, the ones scheduled at the end of summer or in the fall have a hard call to make: go online or postpone for 2021? The Romanian Film Festival is in the same situation. A recent article in Indie Wire was pointing out to the importance of thinking through this process in order to protect filmmakers, before saving film festivals that might rebound next year. We all know the red carpet won’t be as red if the film ages one year, and especially if it was previously shown online. What are your thoughts about this conundrum, as a film critic who knows the value of novelty, synchronicity and perfect timing that regulate the film industry worldwide.

RH: To go completely online does take away some of the luster of the festival experience. I think an online festival, as a (hopefully) one-time-only placeholder, is not a bad thing. It gets movies out, and it may even create a sense of community, in the way people are making the best out of a bad situation. That “sense of community” can never really replace the real thing, of meeting people and watching movies in the same room, but it can work, especially for smaller festivals. I doubt that it would work for bigger events such as Cannes or Venice.

OB: You visited Romania in 2016 as Fulbright Specialist. Can you tell us a bit about that experience? What attracted you to that part of the world? Has it influenced your work in any ways afterwards?

RH: The Romanian New Wave, and then being in contact with folks at the Romanian Film Festival, made me interested in a possible Fulbright visit to Romania. My main impressions include the generosity and warmth of the people I met, and also perhaps the weight of history and how it manifests itself in a place. I spent a week in Constanta and two weeks in Iasi, talking about various subjects in cinema (also participating in the Shakespeare conference in Iasi). One night I had a beer with Florin Lăzărescu, the screenwriter of AFERIM!, who told me an enormous amount about the film and literary worlds of Romania. I can’t really measure how it has influenced me – I always feel like these things affect me in ways more general than specific.

OB: Besides this bond with Romania, you have been our special guest at the Romanian Film Festival in Seattle, and you wrote about Romanian films- your article on Radu Jude’s “Aferim!” in the Film Comment is quite revelatory. In what ways is our work important for the local community of cinephiles, especially in relation to bigger arts and film organizations, such as Seattle International Film Festival and Northwest Film Forum? Do we bring anything new or valuable to the table? Are so-called “ethnic” and “heritage” organizations- for lack of better labels– an important piece of the puzzle that makes our local cultural scene?

RH: I believe strongly in the importance of cultural organizations like this, I really do. The Romanian Film Festival allows for a greater variety of films to be seen, beyond just the one or two that have gotten noticed by cultural gatekeepers. Sometimes the foreign films that we see in the US tend to be festival winners, but we don’t always see movies that are popular in their native countries (“just good movies,” in a way), which can be revealing about what’s on people’s minds in other places. Also, there are specific subjects and styles that become distinctive to certain places. The more we get to see those distinct styles, the less “monoculture” we have. And you can never predict how the exhibition of undistributed films will affect people – you may be touching people and winning over fans in ways you can’t imagine.

Theater, film, and multimedia director Carmen Lidia Vidu is known as the first to introduce video projections and multimedia in Romanian theatre. Her impressive work includes video and visual arts installations, animated films, documentaries, and theatre productions. From art installations Dancing City: Bucharest, Brasov, Cluj, Timisoara (2013) and animated documentary A Brief History of Astra Film (2013), to the short Bucharest – The World of Ion Bârlădeanu and Carmen Vidu (2015) and My Romanian Diary (2019), Carmen Lidia Vidu demonstrated her creative openness to experimentation. Me, a Dollhouse (2015), her feminist adaptation of Ibsen’s drama, was performed internationally with great success, as was her multimedia show Lullaby: A Story about Maria Tănase (2013-2016). Last year, she was acclaimed for directing two major operas for the George Enescu Festival: Benjamin Britten’s Peter Grimes and R. Strauss’ The Woman without a Shadow.

She was interviewed for Stories OFF the Wall: Quarantine Writings and Interviews by Ileana Marin.

IM: Congratulations for the acclaim you received for the video you created for Benjamin Britten’s opera Peter Grimes, performed for the first time in Romania last year, at the George Enescu Festival. It seems that the premiere of Britten’s opera somehow overshadowed your vision of Richard Strauss’ The Woman without a Shadow. How do you explain this?

CLV: Peter Grimes is close to a music-hall. There’s no way to leave the hall without humming the tunes from this opera. The story is filmic and the topic, location, and protagonists are contemporary. The music is simply sensational. I fell in love with this music for life. I am a person who embraces life fully, and I can tell you that working on such a jewel was a grand opportunity. The whole packet is of a lyrical and dramatic force to which the noir and elegance add a unique aspect. This aspect makes Peter Grimes one of the “Best 100 operas of all times”. I “drew” Peter Grimes frame by frame. It was a combination of cartoon and graphic film. It could be that this new style attracted the public and I was touched by the appreciation of the public at large, as well as of the reviewers. I was also pleased to see the show ranked high in several categories. The Woman without a Shadow opera is a difficult score. You need years to understand it and appreciate its sophistication. Its narrative was hard to decipher and it required a lot of diligence. I love to experiment, as if I were in a lab, doing research. I design my vision after the research is completed. I do as much research as I can on the author, as well as on the history of the piece. I look for the roots of the characters as they are the sources of the story. I also look into the author’s private life because I know that I am going to find something in the libretto. I worked hard to break the cipher of The Woman without a Shadow. For the visual part I relied on the drawings made when the opera was premiered in 1919. Basically, I gave a new life to those decors and characters. International chronicles and the conductor’s feedback validated the efforts of my team who deserves all the credit. While The Woman without a Shadow is a difficult opera, Peter Grimes is one you can whistle and hum. Hence the public’s reaction. In the end, I have gained two unique experiences of work and love. (The team Carmen mentioned in her answer includes editor Cristina Baciu and illustrator Gabriela Schinderman.)

IM: You were the first Romanian multimedia artist who introduced video projection in theatre and performance arts. Do you remember how your experiments were received then? Did you think that those “experiments” would bring about new artistic strategies, which would decisively open another path in Romanian performative arts?

CLV: I created niche shows. At 23, in 2003, I started working in Bucharest with photo cameras, taking live photos, recording live shows, with video projections, animations, life music, and electronic music. People told me that I was making multimedia theatre, but I was not aware of it. Later, I realized that I was considered the first multimedia theatre director in Romania. I was young, examining my emotions and thoughts. I was reading dramas and I was looking for myself in their characters. Video production was, and still is, my artistic signature feature in theatre. Multimedia is an active protagonist in my shows, as well as an investigative tool of human nature and art. I don’t want to sound pretentious but experimentation and research give me the pleasure of playing, of limitedness, fearlessness, pretentiousness, freed from expectations. I love to experiment because thus I can find joy. This does not mean that I don’t work hard: I do. In addition, I advocate a very honest relationship with my work and the people I make part of my events. I am still a niche director because I introduced multimedia on theatre stage, I am a woman director in a sexist Romania, and because now I make documentary theatre. I feel that now I try to understand the cultural market, more than theatre show formulas. My focus has moved from my work onto the others.

IM: On your blog I found this motto “The danger of vanity lurks around us and drives us towards isolation. We no longer listen to anything but opinions which confirm ours.” I was surprised to see that you were talking about the isolation into which we are pushed by our own vanity. How did you reach this conclusion? How do you now see the isolation caused by vanity, in comparison to the isolation in which all of us are trapped?

CLV: I have always tried to be fully engaged with reality and have a deeply personal relation with life. For several years I lived in imaginary worlds, in fantasia, in worlds where I thought I had overcome my anxiety. I lied to myself for a long time because I thought that things would work out that way. I then traded theatre for film, videoclips, personal exhibits; I changed my cultural discourse from multimedia to documentation, and I have been invited to international festivals. However, in one thing I have not succeeded: leaving behind the isolation into which my own vanity had trapped me years ago. There is something that makes me reject my professional guild and not be accepted by them. Where did all this start? I would say from lack of education, infantilism, false showmanship, fear, fear of not making wrong decisions, and lack of maturity. What have I learned from all this? That nobody saves oneself and that it is to our advantage to work in teams.

IM: What does a creative artist like yourself do during the isolation caused by the COVID 19 pandemic?

CLV: This pandemic started while I was in the middle of the National Theatre rehearsals for Romanian Diary. 1989 - a Diary of a Revolution. We had to stop rehearsals and protect ourselves from this virus by staying at home. We have continued working on the show online. We still follow the regular work schedule from 10 to 7 every day. My life has not changed very much in this respect. Maybe I am more relaxed when I read. I started testing a meditation technique called “vipassana”, I help my neighborhood church broadcast the service online. I am living with my fears. I cannot find my peace. I am worried about my parents who live in Arad, a city on the Western border with Hungary. Over there, the number of COVID 19 cases is high. Creativity and fear don’t go very well together. It has been, however, a period during which I have asked myself questions about the status of the artist in Romania. It is a moment when we may understand the power of those who work in a team.

IM: What relationship did you have with your spectators in Romania before the pandemic?

CLV: Since I started working in theatre, I have wanted to design cultural events and not shows. During recent years, Q&A sessions have become regular episodes after premieres, at festivals, or on tours. I always request organizers to leave time for Q&As. I also deliver Artist Talks which are now more and more popular and promoted by cultural communities. They break barriers and that’s fantastic. To promote the shows we invest in social media, blogs dedicated to shows, teasers, and trailers.

The theatre culture in Romania is very lively. I live in Bucharest but my shows are performed throughout the country. Every year I try to take a show abroad at least once. In 2016, I launched the documentary project Romania Diary. This way I met Szeklers, Swabians, and people from Dobrudja. I went to Covasna, Constanța, Mogoșoaia, and Timișoara. TheRomania Diary helped me answer questions which had put my life on hold. For many years I wanted to be a director in Bucharest, a director in the capital; yet, in 2016, I decided to leave it. I have lent myself to others. The artists with whom I worked in Sfântu Gheorghe, Constanța, and Timișoara cured me; our conversations were a sort of therapy for me. I have a sincere love for them.

This is the meaning of the Romania Diary: the actor becomes a role model for the public. I don’t mean it as a super-hero with supernatural powers, but as a hero who literally serves as a model, in whom I see myself, with whom I empathize, who makes me diagnose myself and unload the burden that I have carried my entire life. I would love to live in a world with no cultural borders so that there would be no borders separating Romania from the rest of the world, separating the public from artists, separating myself from the institution of the theatre.

IM: Are you still in touch with your public now?

CLV: Interestingly enough, the public have reached out to me. People who watched my shows online, wrote to me. I did not expect such a reaction, mostly because 90% of those who wrote were people I hadn’t met. During isolation, I continued to work online, I adapted. I accepted that the world is changing and that we are living in a unique moment in history. The entire world just stopped to save humanity. An entire world blocked its economy to save mankind. So, I allow myself to enjoy this moment that is writing our history.

IM: In the end, would you be kind and share your memories of your visit to Seattle, and if that short stay left a mark on you?

CLV: I arrived in Seattle in October 2016 after a couple of difficult months. Something didn’t quite work for our team at that time. We had to find a replacement for one member of our team and deal with fragile adjustments for our show. In the end, all four of us made huge efforts to function as a team and bring the Maria Tănase show to Seattle.

First, we were very much impressed by the hall in which we performed, Nesholm Family Lecture Hall at Seattle Center. The place itself overwhelmed us with its spectacular dressing rooms, a large backstage space, and an extremely efficient technician. The public who came to see the show was – I would say – the smartest I have ever met. I mention this aspect in all my interviews. The Q&A after the show was a real treat for me. I had the opportunity to interact with people who had the ability to look beyond the story line and superficial emotions. Meeting and collaborating with the ARCS team offered me the opportunity for social and cultural dialogue that proved to be quite important for me. I returned to Romania very happy with the success of the show in the US, happy that I saw Kurt Cobain’s house, visited and had lunch at the dinner featured in Twin Peaks. I was also impressed by the fact that Seattle bookstores have a corner dedicated to local authors. Last but not least, Jim Augerot’s voice – aka Jean Pierre Francoise Ogerot – made me fall in love with jazz.

IM: Thank you very much for taking from your time to answer my questions.

Tudor Giurgiu is a prominent Romanian filmmaker, screenwriter and producer. He owns Librafilm, an independent production company, and is the founder of Transilvania International Film Festival (TIFF), the most prestigious film-related event in Romania, considered by Indiewire as one of the “world’s top 50 leading film festivals”. He directed and produced music videos, documentaries, shorts and full-length films presented at numerous film festivals worldwide. His feature movies include Love Sick (Berlinale, 2006-Panorama) and Of Snails and Men (Romanian box office hit in 2012), Why Me? (2016) and Parking (2019).

Tudor Giurgiu was interviewed for Stories OFF The Wall: Quarantine Writings and Interviews by Otilia Baraboi

OB: What is your daily routine these days? What is the highlight of your life in quarantine?

TG: Working on my next script. Lots of Zoom meetings – I hate them… Policy making. Absolute highlight was my debut in the cooking world. I’m a good learner and hope for other quarantines to prove my talent here.

OB: Name three things that have become essential for you now.

TG: Fruit smoothies. Rose wine. Asparagus.

OB: There seems to be a synchronized spike in the creativity of artists worldwide. Have you been inspired by the current restrictions on our freedom of movement to write a new script or create a new project?

TG: Not at all. These restrictions didn’t inspire me at all. I had to write the outline of my next project. I had a hard deadline, so there was no choice other than dedicate lots of time to research and writing.

OB: In all your three films presented at the Romanian Film Festival in Seattle (Of Snails and Men, Why Me? and Parking) the male protagonists embody a certain innocence, a charming naiveté coinciding with strong, vertical ethics allowing them to stand against corruption and economic determinism. How much of this character feature is informed by your own biography and success story as a filmmaker and founder of Transilvania Film Festival (TIFF)?

TG: Maybe I was always a bit naïve, innocent, and I thought I could change the world. I guess this attitude influenced my choice of stories and the films I made. Thank God, I reached maturity and now I can focus on different things.

OB: TIFF is one of the most important film-related events in Eastern Europe, taking place annually in May-June. Beginning of April you were optimist and ready “to set alternative potential dates” for TIFF, according to Romania Journal. What are the chances now to hold the festival this year, and what restrictions would apply?

TG: We are still hoping for the 18^th edition to take place in August. It’s going to be in a different setting, for sure, with less films and guests. No more sold-out screenings at full capacity, and outdoor venues will be filled just at half.

OB: You were among the first film festival managers in the world to see the lockdown as an opportunity to expand outside Romania and establish a streaming platform for your growing audience. Do you see TIFF Unlimited as a long-term project that will evolve in parallel with the annual film festival? How will it complement the mission and vision of Transilvania Film Festival?

TG: It will definitely complement the festival as we know it. We had in mind for a longtime to start this VOD platform for our great audience who was always in demand for a platform where they could see the best titles from the Festival’s history, but also recent great arthouse titles from all over the world. And it will give the chance, for many Romanians living in or outside the country, to see recent successful productions of Romanian cinema.

OB: Between May 29-June 7, We Are One: A Global Film Festival, a 10-day digital film festival will run exclusively on You Tube, bringing together programs curated by many prestigious international film festivals, such as Berlin International Film Festival, BFI London Film Festival, Cannes Film Festival, etc. What do you think about this global initiative? Is Transilvania Film Festival part of this project?

TG: We were not approached by the organizers, so we are not involved in this project, but I am very curious about the results. And how much it can be really global. I haven’t seen the film program yet, so cannot comment more about it.

OB: Here in Seattle we are witnessing the creative resilience with which local film organizations and festivals, such as NWFF and SIFF, are trying to fight the economic impact of the pandemic and keep their audience close with virtual screenings, cinema clubs, etc. Our own Romanian Film Festival is following their example. Nevertheless, it is very hard to keep local communities engaged and financially supportive when global mega film events such as “We Are One” are offering free and easily accessible programming on You Tube. What are your thoughts on the consequences of this unequal dynamic between global and local film festivals?

TG: It will always be like this. Today I read the news that MUBI, a great VOD platform, with handpicked arthouse titles is offering all its archive for free viewing. One cannot compete with such initiatives. And it’s too early to come up with conclusions about their efficiency and success.

OB: You visited Seattle twice, the first time as a student, and the second time as a special guest at the Romanian Film Festival in 2016. What is your most vivid memory of the place and our audience?

TG: I love Seattle, its surroundings, nature, everything. It changed a lot since my 1998 visit. Actually, when I came back for the Romanian Film Festival in 2016, it was kind of hard to rediscover the places where I had been first. The audience of the festival was great, it was such a joy to do the Q&A’s after the screenings.

OB: What is your wish for all lovers of Romanian and international cinema in Seattle?

TG: Be ready. Romanians won’t stop. More and more good films will come!

Doina Ruști is an author of several award-winning novels such as Zogru (2006), The Ghost in the Mill (2008), The Little Red Man (2012), Lizoanca at the Age of Eleven (2013), The Phanariot Manuscript (2015), and The Book of Perilous Dishes (2017). Translated into French, Italian, German, and Spanish, they are still waiting for their English version. Her most recent novel, Homeric, is a bestseller in Romania.

She was interviewed for “Stories OFF the Wall: Quarantine Writings and Interviews” by Ileana Marin.

IM: How are you spending time during the pandemic?

DR: Teaching online courses, working on the online journal EIGHT REASONS, and writing on my new novel I just started. So, in a word, writing.

IM: What are you writing?

DR: I’m writing a novel about beds, clearly in a fantastic register. I won’t share more...

IM: I’ve learned that a British press is going to publish one of your works in English. Could you tell me which novel will that be? Was it you who had a say in their selection?

DR: My novel The Book of Perilous Dishes [Mâța Vineri] will be soon published in London. One literary agency, specialized in fantasy, chose it after I made several proposals.

IM: What’s the novel about?

DR: It is about a witch workbook of a small little witch who lost her parents.

IM: Do you think that Romanian literature has become more visible on the world literature map in recent years?

DR: There are some who pretend to be writers without having written anything but because they introduce themselves as writers and succeed in being convincing, the others take their word for it and treat them as writers. This is how it also goes with literature: a literature needs to convince others that it is a corpus of texts. Romanian literature, unfortunately, doesn’t have a business card. Romanian writers do not support one another’s efforts.

IM: I admit that when I read your novel The Ghost in the Mill [Fantoma din moară] I was thinking what a challenge it would be for a translator. On my copy that I left in Constanta I put down English equivalents for some words and phrases. Has anybody taken up its translation into English?

DR: The Ghost in the Mill is my major novel. It is a story about communism and betrayal, as well as about the terrible aftermath, the trials that follow no rules. At the same time, it is a fantastic novel about a ghost that is haunting an abandoned mill.

This is the also the unluckiest novel of my work. It has been translated only into German. It is very difficult to find a translator for English. The very few translators are booked for many years. On top of everything else, for fiction, the translator has to be native speaker. It is even harder to find a publisher or an agent.

IM: How have you collaborated so far with your translators into Italian, French, and German?

DR: I have been lucky having great translators. For example, Roberto Merlo translated me into Italian. He is a linguist and professor at the University of Torino; he is extremely talented. In the case of fiction, the translator’s talent is more important than how well he masters Romanian grammar. Consequently, we did not have much to talk about. Another brilliant translator is Roland Erb, German writer and editor, translator of Romanian classical literature. Eva Wemme, who translated The Ghost in the Mill, is a playwright who knows a lot about the period. She had only one question: what an ARO was. If you remember, it was the car produced during Ceausescu’s era, not many young Romanians have any idea that it existed. I have to mention Enrique Nogueras, a good friend, a poet, and a professor of medieval Romance languages at the University of Granada, who translated other novels of mine. I have learned something about writing from each of my translators... from Jan Cornelius who has a refined understanding of images, as well as from James Ch. Brown, who asked me to add a couple of paragraphs in The Book of Perilous Dishes, explaining that in English the episode about Henri Dubois’ disappearance was not quite clear.

IM: Which are the most frequent difficulties when it comes to translating your books?

DR: Mostly the vocabulary I’m using challenges my translators. A substantial excerpt from The Phanariot Manuscript [Manuscrisul fanariot], a text quite difficult for translators, sounds very well in English, I was told. It was translated by Liana Grama, a Romanian translator who usually translates from English into Romanian. The excerpt was published in “Trafika Europe” (8/2016).

IM: Which of your novels enjoyed the most success in translation?

DR: Translation is a sort of lottery; it depends on chance. Neither the writer, nor the editors know what they would see in the end, because to translate means to actually produce a new version, a new work. Among my books, Lizoanca and The Book of Perilous Dishes have had the best reviews and sold most copies. The Hungarian version of The Book of Perilous Dishes received an important prize for translation, and in China, Spain, and Germany I participated in several readings and events in connection to this novel. Lizoanca had great reviews in major newspapers in Mexico, Spain, Italy, and Hungary, while in Germany it was introduced in public libraries. I was invited to give readings in theatres, halls, at book festivals (Leipzig, Frankfurt), other events, including the meeting with my readers at the “H. Heine” Institute in Düsseldorf which took place even before the novel was recommended for the German National Library. I was also invited by a German Senator to a reading in Berlin. The topic of Lizoanca is very powerful and stirred interest in the protagonists.

IM: Do you have any relation with your readers in other languages?

DR: I did meet with my readers abroad. Some wrote to me. I also received an email from a Turkish student who read excerpts translated from The Phanariot Manuscript in a literary journal. It was about 18th century Istanbul. She shared with me the emotion she experienced when she read my vision of her native city. I was flattered. That meant that the translation is very good. I also have faithful readers, among whom one from Vienna, who shows up at all my events in Europe. Both famous and ordinary people read me. In Torino, someone called me using the name of one of my characters: Zogru. He read the book and wanted to meet me.

IM: Thank you, Doina, for sharing your thoughts about your work, translation, readers all over the world, with the ARCS community and those interested in Eastern European culture on the West coast of the US.

Maryna Ajaja has been a senior programmer for SIFF (Seattle International Film Festival) since 1997. SIFF is a twenty-five day film festival of over 400 films, that includes features, documentaries, archival films, animation, experimental, short films, and film forums. Maryna is a writer and a poet and specializes in films from Eastern/Central European, Russia, Baltics, Central asia, and Caucuses. Born in Hollywood, she makes her home in Seattle, Washington since 1969. To order Maryna’s latest book of poetry, In Deep, please send her an email at valatmeans@seanet.com

She was interviewed for “Stories OFF the Wall: Quarantine Writings and Interviews” by Otilia Baraboi.

O.B. Can you tell us a bit about your daily routine during these times? What is the best part of your day?

M.A: After SIFF was cancelled, my COVID days of quarantine started by vigorously reading books that have been sitting in my bookshelves that I had not read. I read a book that my mother owned, Essays on Dostoevsky, Amos Oz’s auto biography, Shlomo Sand’s book The Invention of the Jewish People, and Aria, a book of poems by Sharon Olds. For the first time, I explored Netflix. I never have time to view on Netfix because programming films for SIFF keeps me more current than what Netflix offers. On their site, I found the Hungarian film, ON BODY AND SOUL by Ildikó Enyedi – the winner of Berlinale 2017 and a film I love, and the series, UNORTHODOX. The best part of these pandemic days are when reading, viewing, connecting to those near and dear though phone or internet, or going outside for walks on the hills of the Chief Sealth Trail, lifts me out of the sadness and horror of our 2020 virus.

O.B. Do you follow the news? How do you cope with what is happening outside the protective walls of our homes?

M.A: Yes, I follow the news and communicate with people all over the globe who are feeling the effects of COVID 19. Sometimes I turn the news off. Sometimes we listen to music. When music or nature doesn’t help, and I cannot cope, I cry. I know that time will change all this and some will choose to live life differently and others will try to pick up where they left off.

O.B. Name three things that have become “essential” for you and three things (they can be the same) that should become “essential” for the entire world.

During times like these, things get down to basics so I won’t be too philosophical. But I’m thinking about life essential and not so much pandemic essential.

3 essential things for me:

Food and shelter

Connection to people

Wisdom and knowledge

3 essential things for the entire world

Food and shelter

Wisdom and knowledge

Aspire towards pluralism

O.B. How are you making your selection of the virtual events you follow? After all, we only have 24 hours a day and we are now bombarded by many attractive offers online- virtual exhibits, virtual film festivals, virtual poetry, virtual this and that...

M.A: After the cancellation of SIFF, I could not look at films for a while. Reading saved me. In the evenings we view a few good television series like, Homeland, Babylon Berlin. I could view more films on profession platforms like Festival Scope or Cinando, but I’m not ready to spend all my time streaming and give in to the virtual world.

O.B. Let’s talk about your book of poetry – In Deep- that came out in these quarantine times. How did it feel, to „launch” it on Social Media, without a gathering with your readers and friends? Celebrating milestones is a crucial ritual in our society, and for our own sense of closure and development. Have you thought of an alternative event online or will you wait till we can be together again physically for such a gathering?

M.A: First of all, the book isn’t launched yet. The actual book has been in the works for the last few years, but I’ve worked on the manuscript for a long time. The oldest poem, Point No Point is from 1979. When three boxes of books arrived in the midst of the COVID 19 pandemic, it filled the SIFF void. Furthermore, I thought I might have a “captive audience.” Of course it is painful not to be able to gather with people at the present time. An online reading does not really interest me. It would be wonderful to celebrate recovery from COVID 19 with a public reading.

O.B. The title In Deep is visionary. Have you ever felt deep down in your guts that these times will come, or should come, in order to redefine our values and slow down? Slow down for poetry, family, friends, nature, art, our mental and physical health.

M.A. No, I don’t think in those terms. Think of history and the continual wars and plague and other deadly pandemics. Is COVID 19 worse? Art has eased fears for eons and it may not even require us to slow down. Mental health and redefining values is a life long struggle and we need to allow for healing and gaining strength. I try to pace myself to keep empathetic.

O.B. Just like your title suggests it, and the art on the book cover - “Diver” by Marion Peck- , the urge for speed vanishes underwater. We open our eyes to observe, make sense of our blurry surroundings. Tell us a bit about one life episode, among the many included in your book, that has acquired clarity thanks to your poetry.

M.A. To me my title In Deep means complete involvement, all red and white corpuscles tuned to attention, the kind of attention that does slow time down to where we cannot even notice its passage. Of all the poems I wrote, CHILDREN was the one that startled me the most and showed me what I really hold dear.

O.B. Your writing is powerful, it hits you with concise performative images such as this one:

“Grief is a short word for a long phenomenon

And is made from pure magma.

Walls cannot stop it.”

Will poetry, literature and arts in general, have the power of “pure magma” to melt down the walls separating nations and cultures? It has become clear that we need more conceptual fluidity to redefine ourselves in relation to others. How do we turn this momentum into a formative experience?

M.A. It already has. Art has the power of a volcano or earthquake and has the force to melt doors and walls. It may leave burns and change the human landscape but people are resilient and have to bend with the changes.

O.B. You have been a long-term friend of the Romanian Film Festival, I remember dearly the first time we met at SIFF Film Center in 2013. Seven years later, the film festival has become an event that reunites around 2000 viewers of various cultural backgrounds. Do you have a special message for our community in these times of great uncertainty for all our programs?

M.A. First, I love to collaborate and if I collaborate with smart people who are equally enthusiastic, it’s an even better. In those kinds of conditions, people learn from each other. And I am convinced that film from Eastern Europe, Central Europe, all the Ex. CIS countries have a lot to offer in regards to digging deep into the human condition. If I had any special message to our film community it would be this: love well, consider others, and allow time and healing processes to create something worth looking forward to.

THANK YOU, Maryna Ajaja for this interview! We’re looking forward to working together and bringing more Romanian and Eastern European films to Seattle.