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Entries Tagged as 'Reviews'

David OLDROYD – Book Review: Continental Drift, Colliding Continents, Converging Cultures

February 20th, 2017 · Comments Off on David OLDROYD – Book Review: Continental Drift, Colliding Continents, Converging Cultures · Books, Diary, Education, Famous People, History, PEOPLE, Reviews, Science

Constantin Roman a Romanian patriot and is presently a professor honoris causa in Bucharest, while residing with his family in salubrious Glyndebourne. Roman must, by his account, surely be one of the world’s most upwardly mobile earth scientists. Starting in England with only £5 in his pocket, by ability, persistence, and charm, and using Newcastle as a stepping‐stone, he became acquainted with the right people and obtained a scholarship to Peterhouse, Cambridge, to do a Ph.D. on the tectonics of the Caucasus and across into Central Asia.

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Moving Here – A Continental’s Drift

February 9th, 2017 · Comments Off on Moving Here – A Continental’s Drift · Books, Diary, Diaspora, Famous People, History, International Media, PEOPLE, quotations, Reviews, Short Stories & Cameos

My greatest trouble in England arose from my refusal to give up my Romanian nationality. In retrospect this may seem bizarre, especially that I was menaced on a number of fronts: by Securitate operatives masquerading as diplomats, keen to end my flouting of socialist order and drag me back to Romania; by a prospective mother-in-law who refused to allow her daughter to marry me, unless I accepted British citizenship… and by officials of the British Home Office, who assumed that my desire to retain what I saw as my unalienable right of birth, my nationality, might stem from communist loyalties.

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“Blouse Roumaine”, ou le rayonnement de la culture Roumaine en France: par Constantin ROMAN

January 30th, 2017 · Comments Off on “Blouse Roumaine”, ou le rayonnement de la culture Roumaine en France: par Constantin ROMAN · Books, Communist Prisons, Diaspora, Famous People, History, OPINION, PEOPLE, Poetry, POLITICAL DETENTION / DISSENT, quotations, Reviews, Science, Translations

“Blouse Roumaine” is not intended as a feminist book, although it will interest feminists. However this Anthology reflects the social history of a corner of Europe through the perception and the avatars of Romanian women, who remained native, or those who took the sad road of exile.
This anthology covers both 19th and the 20th centuries, with an emphasis on women since WWII. A number of ‘unknown illustrious’ women, whom the author considers quite exceptional for their character, are also included, such as political prisoners, women of the maquis, who perished in the Romanian gulags, (not just the upper classes and the dispossessed, but also the less formally educated, farming, or working class women).

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Constantin ROMAN: Memoirs “Continental Drift, Colliding Continents, Converging Cultures” (extract)

January 6th, 2017 · Comments Off on Constantin ROMAN: Memoirs “Continental Drift, Colliding Continents, Converging Cultures” (extract) · Books, Diary, Education, History, International Media, PEOPLE, POLITICAL DETENTION / DISSENT, Reviews, Science, Short Stories & Cameos

Mi-am analizat rapid, din interstiţiile memoriei, virtuţile eventuale ale originii noastre sociale, pentru ca să pot avea o ideie de cum m-aş fi putut bucura de libertatea de a călători în străinătate, atâta timp cât paşaportul era acordat doar pe criterii de apartenenţă la o anumită clasă socială şi politică privilegiată: era evident că în familia noastră nu ne-am născut “ilegalişti”. Departe de a aparţine categoriei privilegiate de comunişti nomenclaturişti, familia noastră nu dorea să se compromită luând din mers trenul communist, ba chiar dimpotrivă, după ce ne pierdusem prin expropriere şi naţionalizare toate economiile şi bunurile mobile şi imobile, ajunsesem să fim marginalizaţi. Şansa noastră de supravieţuire nu era foarte bună, să nu mai vorbim de luxul de a fi obţinut un paşaport.

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“Blouse Roumaine”: Henriette-Yvonne Stahl (Mrs. Petru Dumitriu), (1900-1984), Romania, “Prisoner of Conscience”

January 4th, 2017 · Comments Off on “Blouse Roumaine”: Henriette-Yvonne Stahl (Mrs. Petru Dumitriu), (1900-1984), Romania, “Prisoner of Conscience” · Books, Communist Prisons, Diary, Diaspora, Famous People, International Media, PEOPLE, POLITICAL DETENTION / DISSENT, quotations, Reviews, Translations

By contrast to Stahl, Dumitriu was an unknown quantity, a rough diamond from the provinces, the young-man-in-a-hurry, ready to climb the greasy pole of the communist political establishment. This may not be the place to discuss this ‘fatal attraction’, which the fragrant 45 year-old Stahl had for the handsome 22 year-old muscle.

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POETRY IN TRANSLATION (405 – 406), Florenta ALBU (1934 – 2003), ROMANIA: “Gauche-droite”, “Le chant de Bucarest”

December 29th, 2016 · Comments Off on POETRY IN TRANSLATION (405 – 406), Florenta ALBU (1934 – 2003), ROMANIA: “Gauche-droite”, “Le chant de Bucarest” · Books, Famous People, International Media, OPINION, PEOPLE, Poetry, quotations, Reviews, Translations

Allez-y Arlequins
Chants d’Arlequins
Alors que les portes sont grandes ouvertes
Sur l’âme du vide…

Cette marche dans la boue
Une peur historique encore et encore en criant
Gauche – droite – gauche

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POETRY IN TRANSLATION (404), Nuno BRITO (b. 1981), PORTO, PORTUGAL: “Hungarian delirium”, “Delir Maghiar“

December 27th, 2016 · Comments Off on POETRY IN TRANSLATION (404), Nuno BRITO (b. 1981), PORTO, PORTUGAL: “Hungarian delirium”, “Delir Maghiar“ · Books, Diaspora, Famous People, International Media, PEOPLE, Poetry, quotations, Reviews, Translations

The clouds in the dream are less beautiful
Snowflakes in Brussels, the angels warm up
Every day I drive on a silver motorway that runs till the
centre of your soul
There’s pleasure in each atom,
in each atom – the universe

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Synopsis of “The Blouse Roumaine – An Anthology of Romanian Women” Selected and introduced by Constantin Roman

October 2nd, 2016 · Comments Off on Synopsis of “The Blouse Roumaine – An Anthology of Romanian Women” Selected and introduced by Constantin Roman · Books, Communist Prisons, Diaspora, Education, Famous People, History, International Media, OPINION, PEOPLE, Poetry, POLITICAL DETENTION / DISSENT, quotations, Reviews, Science, Translations

These sketches are displayed like a series of miniatures in a virtual National Portrait Gallery: they are all glittering stars from Western galaxies and Eastern nebulae, in all 160 of them…

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POETRY IN TRANSLATION (155): Marin SORESCU (1936-1996), ROMANIA – “Passport”

July 9th, 2016 · 1 Comment · Books, Diaspora, Education, Famous People, International Media, PEOPLE, Poetry, quotations, Reviews, Translations

This passport
Is written in my bones
On my skull, femur, phalanges and spine
All arranged in a way
To make clear
My right to be man.

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ETERNAL REST IN BUCHAREST (PART 1 OF 6)

March 28th, 2016 · Comments Off on ETERNAL REST IN BUCHAREST (PART 1 OF 6) · Books, Diary, Genealogy, History, PEOPLE, quotations, Reviews, Short Stories & Cameos

Sărut mâna pentru masă
C-a fost bună şi gustoasă
Şi bucătăreasa grasă.

Which, in the English vernacular translation, would more or less sound like:

Kiss your hand, Ma’am, for the pastry,
And the meal, which was so tasty,
For the coffee and all that,
As the cook was nice and fat’.

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