„Es gibt freundlichere Orte auf diesem Planeten, als …“

Are there any friendlier places than Romania or Germany, Bucharest or Berlin? Hardly. Or are there?

Carmen Francesca Banciu, Maria Bidian, andIlinca Florian—all of whom have strong personal ties to Romania and have been living in Berlin for quite some time—will read from their novels and short stories.

Moderator: Ernest Wichner

Three authors have written books in which they grapple with their own past or that of family members in Romania. These are, at the very least, ambiguous retrospectives that—despite their literary diversity—are united by a broader framework: Where do you come from, what is it like there, what kinds of hardships are you subjected to there, what does this mean for the individual, are there ways to escape …? In“Farewell, Comrades and Beloved! Death of a Patriot,”she settles scores with her own father, who was the party secretary in a large provincial city and thus also responsible for the entire district—a situation that drove his daughter out of the family and turned her into an opponent of the regime her father had helped uphold. In Maria Bidian’s novel*The Peacock Painting*, the protagonist investigates the fate of a father who was imprisoned during the dictatorship as an opponent of the regime;  Furthermore, her novel deals with the difficulties of navigating post-communist Romania, with its opaque bureaucratic structures and the corruption of its officials. In“Als wir das Lügen lernten” (When We LearnedtoLie), Ilinca Florian tells the story—from a child’s perspective—of the tensions that arise between different branches of the family when—for various reasons: one part of the family wants to emigrate, something the other part must not know—the truth is lost in what had previously been open and familiar circles.

Readings & Discussions

The event will be held in German!