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Entries Tagged as 'exile'

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”: 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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Dictionary of Romanian Quotations – Letter “M”

November 12th, 2016 · Comments Off on Dictionary of Romanian Quotations – Letter “M” · Books, Communist Prisons, Diaspora, Famous People, History, International Media, OPINION, PEOPLE, POLITICAL DETENTION / DISSENT, quotations, Translations

“I wished that [my interrogator] would carry a sack with all his dead. I wished his hacked-off hair would smell like a newly mown graveyard whenever he sat at the barber’s. I wished his crimes would reek when he sat down at the table with his grandson after work. That the boy would be disgusted by the fingers that were feeding him cake”.
(Herta Müller, (b. 1953, Banat, Romania) “The Land Of Green Plums”)

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Dictionary of Romanian Quotations – Letter “L”

November 10th, 2016 · Comments Off on Dictionary of Romanian Quotations – Letter “L” · Diaspora, Famous People, International Media, OPINION, PEOPLE, quotations, Translations

Lover:
“After the metaphors, the Chemist. This is how great sentiments are frittered away. To start as a poet and finish as a gynaecologist. From all conditions, that of the lover is the least enviable.”
(Emil Cioran (1911-1995), philosopher, writer)
(“Syllogismes de l’amertume”)

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POETRY IN TRANSLATION (401). Mahmoud DARWISH (1941, Palestina – 2008, SUA): “I come from there”, “Vin de pe meleaguri îndepărtate”

July 26th, 2016 · Comments Off on POETRY IN TRANSLATION (401). Mahmoud DARWISH (1941, Palestina – 2008, SUA): “I come from there”, “Vin de pe meleaguri îndepărtate” · Books, Diaspora, Famous People, PEOPLE, Poetry, POLITICAL DETENTION / DISSENT, quotations, Translations

Mine is the moon at the far edge of the words,
And the bounty of birds,
And the immortal olive tree.

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Poetry in Translation (CCCXCV), ROMANIA/SPAIN – Horia VINTILĂ (1915, Segarcea, Romania – 1992, Madrid, Spain) – “Echilibru”, “Balance”

June 14th, 2016 · Comments Off on Poetry in Translation (CCCXCV), ROMANIA/SPAIN – Horia VINTILĂ (1915, Segarcea, Romania – 1992, Madrid, Spain) – “Echilibru”, “Balance” · Books, Diaspora, Famous People, International Media, PEOPLE, Poetry, POLITICAL DETENTION / DISSENT, quotations, Translations, Uncategorized

You’re passing, like a fairy, in shimmering of shadows,
Which ripple in the echoes, to freeze in marble stone.
As in my singing body reverberates your music
Which keeps your smile eternal, with its angelic tone.

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Poetry in Translation (CCCLXXXII): Marina TSVETAEVA (1892-1941) RUSSIA: “A kiss on the forehead”, “Sărut pe frunte”

February 12th, 2016 · Comments Off on Poetry in Translation (CCCLXXXII): Marina TSVETAEVA (1892-1941) RUSSIA: “A kiss on the forehead”, “Sărut pe frunte” · Books, Diaspora, Famous People, History, International Media, PEOPLE, Poetry, quotations, Translations

Sărut pe frunte
Marina TSVETAEVA
(1892-1941)
Un sărut pe frunte – şterge mizeria.
Iţi sărut fruntea.
Un sărut pe ochi – şterge insomnia
Iţi sărut ochii.
Un sărut pe buze – e-un pahar cu apă.
Iţi sărut buzele.
Un sărut pe buze – iţi şterge memoria.

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Poetry in Translation (CCCLXXII), ROMANIA/GERMANY, Alexandru LUNGU (1924 Cetatea Alba, Bessarabia, Romania – 2008, Bonn, Germany): “Margini”, “Limit”

January 9th, 2016 · Comments Off on Poetry in Translation (CCCLXXII), ROMANIA/GERMANY, Alexandru LUNGU (1924 Cetatea Alba, Bessarabia, Romania – 2008, Bonn, Germany): “Margini”, “Limit” · Diaspora, Famous People, International Media, PEOPLE, Poetry, quotations, Reviews, Translations

Leave me this limit
of the world
ultimate frontier uncertain space
sufficient to stop sliding
this lonely traveler’s foot
sufficient to stop my head
falling off the clouds.

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Poetry in Translation (CCCLXXI), RUSSIA, Alexander PUSHKIN (1799, Moscow – 1837 St. Petersburg): “Friendship”, “Prietenie”

January 5th, 2016 · Comments Off on Poetry in Translation (CCCLXXI), RUSSIA, Alexander PUSHKIN (1799, Moscow – 1837 St. Petersburg): “Friendship”, “Prietenie” · Communist Prisons, Famous People, History, International Media, PEOPLE, Poetry, POLITICAL DETENTION / DISSENT, Translations

What’s friendship? The hangover’s faction,
The gratis talk of outrage,
Exchange by vanity, inaction,
Or bitter shame of patronage.

Prietenia, ce e? Ecou de facţiune,
O vorbă ieftină, cu spirit de ultraj,
Cocktail de vanitate şi inacţiune,
Păcatul unui mare patronaj.

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Poetry in Translation (CCCLX), Paul CELAN (1920, Cernăuți, Bucovina, Romania – 1970, Paris, France), ROMANIA/FRANCE: “PANTA”, “La Pente”, “Die Halde”

October 10th, 2015 · No Comments · Books, Diaspora, Famous People, International Media, PEOPLE, Poetry, quotations, Reviews, Science, Translations

Tu vis près de moi, telle que moi :
comme une pierre
dans la joue affaissée de la nuit.
…
Ô cet œil ivre
qui erre ici comme nous
nous confond à lui
et s’en étonne.

Exişti alături de mine, ca şi mine însumi:
ca o piatră
în obrazul supt al nopţii.

O, acest ochi beat
rătăcitor ca şi noi
ne confundă
şi este surprins.

Rendered in Romanian by Constantin ROMAN,
© 2015 Copyright Constantin ROMAN, London

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