NTB Conferences

Sunday, February 27th, 11:00, Ioana Pârvulescu speaks at the Writing Romanian is very difficult... The media in Caragiale's time conference, at the "Atelier" Hall of the National Theatre. The price of a ticket is of 16 or 23 lei.      About the conference At some point, past 1990, I discovered the pleasure of reading newspapers and magazines of the 19th century and of the first half of the 20th. Far from being dusty, these yellow pages had a freshness of life that would compete dangerously with the books of the time. Although I'm afraid that journalism is one of the reasons for weakening literary powers, with its imperfection and ephemeral character, with its lifespan of 24 hours, once awaken after a 100 year sleep like Sleeping Beauty, the old media proves itself young and charismatic. And revealing. The Writing Romanian is very difficult... The media in Caragiale's time conference sets off from the malentu'es caused by Caragiale's work, then and now. I will not evade difficult or risky questions. To find the key to Caragiale's work and an explanation for the different ways it's been perceived by both his contemporary and his successors I will make a colorful detour through the newspapers of the second half of the 19th century, mostly around 1900. And Caragiale will shadow me on this surprising road. About Ioana Pârvulescu She was born in Brasov. Graduated of the Andrei Saguna Highscool. She moved to Bucharest at 19 years old to attend the courses of the Faculty of Letters. After graduation (in 1983) she commuted, like many of her generation, for 7 years as a Romanian teacher. In 1993 she became an editor for the Literary Romania magazine, where is she published weekly, for 17 years. She initiated and coordinated the "Book on the nightstand" collection of the Humanitas publishing house. Presently, the holds conferences at the Faculty of Letters in Bucharest and teaches modern Romanian literature. She published several books, translations from French and German, including Angelus Silesius and Rike, anthologies. Her greatest success was with volumes published by Humanitas: essays Return to the interwar Bucharest (2003)  and In the intimacy of the 19th century (2005), the novel Life begins on Friday (2009) - books that have in common the same main character: Bucharest. About Caragiale, she wrote a short essay novel "In the country of myth creatures. 7 times Caragiale" and a letter dedicated to all "Caragiale'phils and phobs" in the "Book of Questions" (2010).

Sunday, February 13th, 11 pm, Cristian Teodorescu will hold The lost memory conference at the Studio Hall, the National Theatre. About the conference The subject of this conference - and of the novel Medgidia, city of the afterlife - emerged from a trip throughout the country during which we came to realize that we don't know anything or almost anything anymore about our grandparents' generation. The ruin and annihilation of the middle class in Romania led not only to the disappearance of an entire world from the collective memory, with its good and bad, but also to a rupture between generations and a fracture of an entire system of values with effects that still reverberate in the reconstruction the local middle class. About Cristian Teodorescu Cristian Teodorescu was born in 1954, in Medgidia, a district of the Dobrogea region at the time. He graduated from the Philology Faculty of the University of Bucharest in 1980. For five years he worked as a commuting professor in the village of Vizureşti from Dâmboviţa County. After that, he was a proofreader at "Informaţia" typography in Bucharest, a proofreader and then an editor at the România Literară magazine. After 1990 he worked at Cotidianul - as section editor, Zig Zag - deputy editor-in-chief, again at Cotidianul  -  deputy editor-in-chief, Avantaje - deputy editor-in-chief, Europa Liberă - head of the Bucharest office, Cultura -  director, and again at Cotidianul as a senior editor. He was an editor-in-chief of the Romanian edition of Le Monde diplomatique, editorial director of the Romanian edition of the New York Times Book Review magazine. Now, he is working as an editor at Academia Caţavencu. He begun his literary career in 1981 with a short story published in the Tribuna magazine and an editorial in the Assault  83 anthology (at Cartea Românească Publishing House, 1983). In 1985 his volume of short stories Master of lights was published (at Cartea Românească Publishing House) and brought him the Writers Union debut award, the UTC award and the "Liviu Rebreanu" Foundation award. In 1988 he published the novel Secrets of the Heart (at Cartea Românească Publishing House), awarded by the Romanian Academy in 1990. In 1991 Faust retold to my sons, Petre and Matei (at Alex Publishing House). He published a new volume of short stories, Tales of the new world in 1996 (RAO Publishing House) for which he received the USR award. Other two short-story volumes follow, The angel at the gas station in 2002 (at Paralela 45 Publishing House), Master of lights and other storie, 2004 (at Curtea Veche Publishing House). In that same year he reedited Secrets of the Heart at Cartea Românească. In 2009, he published the novel Medgidia, the city of the afterlife at Cartea Românească, awarded by the Iaşi Newspaper, the Writers Union and The Romanian novel colloquy in Alba Iulia. Translations of his short stories were printed in short prose anthologies in Holland, Russia, United States and France. He collaborated with the Ateneu, Cuvântul, Lettre Internationale, Dilema Veche, Dilemateca magazines.

Ştefan Cazimir

Mircea Dinescu