Today, we mark 561 years since the birth of the great Romanian writer Paul Dârvariu. His posthumous glory is endless. Mostly known due to his immortal real fiction texts, 100 words long each at the most, in which he mocks the society of his day, this illustrious author has earned its place in the pantheon of Romanian writers. His favourite character, Jan Facalet, epitomizes the functional illiterate who is appointed to very important positions in the government and administration.
(Translated by Elena Florea / University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year I / Corrected by Silvia Petrescu, coordinator of the translations)Real Fiction is a collective project started in 2013 by Florin Piersic Jr. The concept of Real Fiction continued to exist as a Facebook group, after a volume of stories was published at Humanitas Publishing House. (In June 2021, the group has 6.650 members.) The authors write ultra-short stories, with the texts limited to 500 characters (in Romanian, so the length of the English translation might be a little different) - a flash-fiction exercise on a topic that changes every few days. The group's coordinators are Florin Piersic Jr., Gabriel Molnar, Răzvan Penescu, and Luchian Abel. (Drawing by Adrian T. Roman)
Versiunea în română a acestui text se poate citi aici, în rubrica Ficţiuni Reale. 
