Max Blecher ✌
Ilarie Voronca ✌
Liliana Corobca ✌
T.O. Bobe ✌
Gheorghe Săsărman ✌
Nora Iuga ✌
Mircea Cărtărescu ✌
Magda Cârneci ✌
Hortensia Papadat-Bengescu ✌
Panait Istrati ✌
Mihail Sebastian ✌
Gabriela Adameșteanu ✌
Norman Manea ✌
Dumitru Tsepeneag ✌
Max Blecher ✌ Ilarie Voronca ✌ Liliana Corobca ✌ T.O. Bobe ✌ Gheorghe Săsărman ✌ Nora Iuga ✌ Mircea Cărtărescu ✌ Magda Cârneci ✌ Hortensia Papadat-Bengescu ✌ Panait Istrati ✌ Mihail Sebastian ✌ Gabriela Adameșteanu ✌ Norman Manea ✌ Dumitru Tsepeneag ✌
What is The Romanian Bookshelf?
An independent project
that aims to put more Romanian books on shelves around the US.
FACTS ⚐
Almost 80% of all the books published in the US come out of Manhattan, New York. Translated fiction makes up less than 1% of the books published every year. Backlist titles make up the bulk of that.
According to the Translation Database, nearly 5,800 books of fiction and poetry were translated into English from 2008 to 2018. About 70 are translations from Romanian (over 40% of these translations are poetry). Two books have been reviewed in The New York Times. One in The Paris Review. One in The New Yorker.
FEELINGS ✿
Translator Esther Allen, former chairwoman of the PEN translation committee called English “the clogged artery that prevents authors from reaching readers anywhere outside their own country.” Books that are translated into English have higher odds of reaching a global audience and of being translated into other languages. Being translated into English is a significant milestone for Romanian authors (“What greater wish could a Romanian writer have than to be published in the United States?” Gheorghe Săsărman, Squaring the Circle, tr. Ursula K. Le Guin, Mariano Martín Rodríguez).
The wait time between the publication date in Romania and the translation into English is so long that authors need to re-acquaint themselves with their own books. Here is Mircea Cărtărescu on Solenoid: “First, I have to try and remember this old book of mine because it was published seven or eight years ago. Since then, I have written six or seven other books.”
