I won it in any way possible, taking advantage of the fact that I was in Stockholm for some occasion. I remember a poster of Nelson Mandela, another of Gorbachev. I was laughing around the Museum remembering that our Ceaușescu, in his madness, wanted the Nobel Prize for Peace too. He had even held a kind of referendum in which we all had to vote for a 5% reduction in armaments. Theoretically, out of 20 Romanian rifles, one would have disappeared by referendum. In reality, however, Ceaușescu didn't get the Nobel.
Sanda Burță
Leopoldine Slamar didn't love me, I knew that, but I wanted to show her somehow that I had changed, that I was no longer the brute she knew. That's how I started writing. With the desperation of a beast cutting off its trapped paw with its fangs. I exorcised in my books, one by one, all my demons, my anger, my cruelty, my greed, my whoredom. I waited for her to see me. Praise, ovation, recognition. Leopoldine didn't love me. From the medal I'd won I polished my bullet and blew my brains out. It's bloody hot in hell. And I still love her.
Ioana Clara Enescu
As soon as I walked in, he ran towards me, his eyes brighter than ever. Forrrgive us for not finding a biggerrr one, he said, like a snarling mouse, offering me the most beautiful little mărțișor[1]in the world, a red plastic rose that barely fit in his palm. In the light of the first spring morning, the floor turned blue, the windows filled with flowers, and from velvet armchairs looked at me, in an uncertain mixture of joy and sternness, the scholars who had clasped the most precious medal around my heart.
[1]a spring token, a tiny adornment tied with a red and white entwined cord presented on March 1st.
(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.