In times of calamity and social distress, it was often the writers who were called to imagine how the world would heal its wounds and begin again. Inspired by the creative examples of the past, we have summoned an extraordinary ensemble of authors and translators and challenged them to picture by way of prose and poetry how life re-emerging from the black silence of the pandemic may look like. We continue our online series LIFE ANEW. WRITERS IMAGINE THE WORLD AFTER THE PANDEMIC, created together with the National Museum of Romanian Literature, with poet and novelist IOANA NICOLAIE, one of the most original voices in Romanian literature today, translated by consummate polyglot, CARRIE HOOPER.
IOANA NICOLAIE (born in Sângeorz-Băi, Bistriţa-Năsăud county, Romania) is the author of several volumes of poetry (Retouched Photo, The North, The Faith, Cenotaph, Autoimmune – considered to be the “Best Book of 2013” by the Romanian Writers Union), an anthology (Lomographies), three novels (The Sky Inside the Belly, A Bird on the Wire, The Black Wormwood – a finalist for the most important national literary prizes, winner of the prose prize awarded by Ateneu magazine, the “Book of the Year 2018” voted in the competition “The Reader Knows Best”, and Reghina's Book, winner of the Radio Romania Cultural Prize for Prose 2020 and the National Prize for Prose "The Newspaper of Iassy", and several volumes of children’s literature (Arik’s Adventures, Arik and the Mercenaries, Ferbonia, Vertigia and Medilo’s Journey). She was nominated for several international prizes, among which the Eastern European Literature Award. The North was translated in German (2008), The Sky Inside the Belly was published in Swedish (2013), Bulgarian (2014) and German (2018), A Bird on the Wire was translated in Serbian, while Autoimmune was published in Bulgarian (2016). Her works were included in twenty collective books in Romania (Windows 98, 40238 Tescani, The Book of Grandparents, Intellectuals in the Kitchen, The Book of Senses, My Bucharest, Writers at the Police, etc.) and in several foreign magazines and anthologies (Poésie 2003: Roumanie, territoire d’Orphée, New European Poets, An Anthology of Contemporary Romanian Poetry etc.). She has been invited to many national and international conferences and literature festivals. Selections of her poems have been translated into French, English, German, Swedish, Polish, and Bulgarian. She is a member of the Romanian Writers’ Union and of PEN Romania.
Photo credit: Mircea Cărtărescu