The accountant calls me, preferably not before he dies. Mr. Caragiescu, I also hope he's better with numbers than names, he says, the money from that renowned literature prize came in, whatever its name may be. Me: Big figure? A bit. Round? And. With lots of zeros, as you like, Mr. Caragidaniel. All right, transfer it as usual to that Swiss account; take your fee. One more thing, the payment came in from Fiction. Big? Hmm. Zeroes? None. It's not even round, just cents. They say you've been accused of omitting a comma.
Iulia Biro
I'm only telling you this: I won it by mistake. Like when my daughter, when she was about 8 years old, had to paint a scene from a fairy tale for a contest, chose Little Red Riding Hood, found the paper too empty and added a few more animals. The jury thought it was The Bremen Town Musicians and awarded her the prize. I wrote it as a joke and from anger, a book that broke almost every rule taught in creative writing classes. Once it was out there and everyone thought I was a reformer, what was I to do?
Laura Stanciu
In the winter of 1905, Bertha Kinsky was framing her Nobel Peace Prize diploma in her elegant Vienna home. It was more than that. It was the last reminder of Alfred. The first had been the newspaper advertisement. Wealthy, educated, elderly gentleman seeks mature, foreign language-speaking woman as secretary and housekeeper. Having lived together, they had corresponded all their lives. He had promised her he would create something to bind their names together. It wasn't until she was 62 that their names ended up on the same official document.
(Translated by Andreea Cristina Moise / University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year I / Corrected by Silvia Petrescu, coordinator of the translations)
Versiunea în română a acestui text se poate citi aici, în rubrica Ficțiuni Reale.