Mihail Sebastian

A prescient interwar masterpiece, available in English for the first time 'Absolutely, definitively alone', a young Jewish student in Romania tries to make sense of a world that has decided he doesn't belong. Spending his days walking the streets and his nights drinking and gambling, meeting revolutionaries, zealots, lovers and libertines, he adjusts his eyes to the darkness that falls over Europe, and threatens to destroy him. Mihail Sebastian's 1934 novel was written amid the anti-Semitism which would, by the end of the decade, force him out of his career and turn his friends and colleagues against him. For Two Thousand Years is a lucid, heart-wrenching chronicle of resilience and despair, broken layers of memory and the terrible forces of history.

For Two Thousand Years

Journal 1935-44

Orașul cu salcâmi

A Novel

Women

Accidentul

Patrick Camiller

Radu Ioanid

The Fascist Years

Journal 1935-1944

Available for the first time in English, this novel of love and betrayal has enthralled readers all over Europe.

The Accident

roman

Femei

Alain Paruit

Quelques secondes ? Ou déjà quelques longues minutes ? Elle ne sentait rien. Elle entendait autour d'elle des voix, des pas, des appels, mais le tout sourd et gris, une sorte de pâte sonore d'où se détachait parfois, avec une subite clarté, une cloche de tramway ou un cri... " C'est donc un accident ", se dit-elle, très calme, presque indifférente. Bucarest, 1938. À la suite d'un banal accident de la circulation, Nora va être reconnue par Paul dont elle s'éprend aussitôt. Mais Paul aime follement Anna, peintre célèbre qui vient de le quitter. Les intermittences du cœur, tel va être le thème de ce roman. Banal Certainement pas, car il a pour toue de fond l'Europe centrale à la veille de la guerre et donc la fin d'un monde. Entre un Bucarest crépusculaire et les montagnes magiques de Transylvanie, un homme et deux femmes vont aller jusqu'au bout de leurs rêves et de leurs passions.

L'accident

Fiction. Translated by Christina Tudor-Sideri. The late Mihail Sebastian's brief 1932 book available in English for the first time."One November evening (in circumstances that would take too long to narrate here) I found in Paris, on the Mirabeau Bridge, a notebook with black, glossy, oilcloth covers, like the ones in which grocers used to keep accounts. There were exactly 126 pages--commercial paper--filled with small writing, streamlined, without erasures. A curious reading, tiring in places, obscure passages, notations that appeared foreign to me, in fact even absolutely contrasting."--Mihail Sebastian

Fragments from a Found Notebook

Jocul de-a vacanța; Steaua fără nume

Nae Ionescu

De două mii de ani...

texte, fapte, oameni

Cum am devenit huligan

This book is a chronicle of the dark years of Nazism by the Romanian Jewish writer, Mihail Sebastian.

Journal, 1935-1944

A rediscovered classic from the author of For Two Thousand Years, this remarkable novel presents nuanced snapshots of love in the early twentieth century. Stefan Valeriu, a young man from Romania who has just completed his medical studies in Paris, spends his vacation in the Alps, where he quickly becomes entangled with three different women. We follow Stefan after his return to Paris as he reflects on the women in his life, at times playing the lover, and at others observing shrewdly from the periphery. Women's four interlinked stories offer moving, strikingly modern portraits of romantic relationships in all their complexity, from unrequited loves and passionate affairs to tepid marriages of convenience. In the same eloquent style that would characterize his later, more political writings, Mihail Sebastian explores longing, otherness, empathy, and regret.

Como si de una peculiar crónica sentimental se tratara, «Mujeres» (1933), primera novela del genial Mihail Sebastian, relata las aventuras protagonizadas o presenciadas por un joven médico en cuatro etapas diferentes de su vida. Historias de conquistas y separaciones, de reencuentros y de partidas, que dejan en el lector el sabor metálico y agreste de las pasiones equivocadas, y la certeza de que el amor es algo voluble, desordenado y agridulce que nada tiene que ver con el destino. Díscolas o sumisas, temperamentales o burguesas, las mujeres que jalonan la vida del joven doctor Stefan Valeriu son, sin duda, inolvidables. «Por qué Émilie Vignou se mantuvo virgen hasta la noche en que conoció a Irimia C. Irimia, eso es algo que yo no sabría explicar exactamente. Quizá fuera por pereza o por falta de imaginación. Todo debería haber estado en contra de esa castidad tan tardía.»

Mujeres

Od dwóch tysięcy lat

cu o prefaţă de Nae Ionescu

De doua mii de ani...

În Accidentul, Nora sare stângaci din tramvai și este ajutată să se ridice de Paul, avocat de succes, însă nefericit sentimental, care o conduce până acasă. Tânăra profesoară i se dăruiește spontan, deși devotamentul și răbdarea ei îl lasă multă vreme indiferent pe mizantropul Paul. În cele din urmă, Nora îi propune o excursie la schi, în mijlocul naturii somptuoase de pe Valea Prahovei, cu intenția vădită de a-l vindeca de depresia suferită ca urmare a iubirii pentru pictorița Ann. Accidentul, cel mai popular roman al lui Mihail Sebastian, înfăţişează iubirea cu toate meandrele ei și alegerile hotărâtoare în fața cărora sunt puse personajele feminine. Ultimul roman al lui Mihail Sebastian poate fi citit în nenumărate chei. (...) Astfel, Accidentul va fi – pe rând sau simultan – roman sportiv, roman erotic, roman post-proustian al geloziei, roman gotic, stând sub semnul Nibelungilor lui Richard Wagner, roman inițiatic al salvării spirituale, roman utopic, eliberat din sociologia strictă a realismului, roman al celebrării aventurii.

In het Roemenië van begin jaren twintig komt een jonge Joodse student tot de ontdekking dat hij zich niet langer thuis voelt in de wereld. Hij wordt bedreigd en in elkaar geslagen door antisemitische medestudenten, maar voelt zich ook niet verwant met zijn Joodse leeftijdsgenoten. Hij wandelt door de straten van de hoofdstad, waar hij gokt, drinkt en spreekt met revolutionairen, fanatici en libertijnen. Van Boekarest tot Parijs probeert hij een manier te vinden om zich te verhouden tot de vijandige duisternis die over Europa valt. Sinds tweeduizend jaar verscheen voor het eerst in 1934 en is een heldere, vaak schokkende kroniek over veerkracht en wanhoop in tijden van populistische retoriek en oorlogsdreiging.

Mihail Sebastian

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