Mihai, as I said in the podcast at Măruță[1], people don't love me, they love my life experience gained in 34 years. Gabriel, you are now working on a new book. Give us a spoiler. Title, The Kitchen Knife. Is it a thriller? Not even close. It's a cookbook. Now, an uncomfortable question. Why is the Writers' Union rejecting someone with 67 volumes published in various fields? My dear Mihai, I prefer not to answer that. If we pull out the sales figures, we'll see whose side the success is on.
[1] Cătălin Măruță is a Romanian television presenter.
Mădălina Angelescu
I'm not kidding. Every form of art is remunerated. By the twinkle in your eyes. By the thrill that creeps into your soul or down your spine. I'm sadistic, I'm romantic, I'm honest or I shroud it all in lies. I write. I scribble words on papers yellowed by time. The sheaf of blank sheets dwindles as the written ones pile up. Tears stain the pages, smelling of perfume or cigars. Traces of my fingers. Parts of my soul, dissected organs I lay on the tray. Everything has a price.
Monica Ciurea
She, bookstore salesgirl. He, an anonymous. Initially she preferred the classics. He preferred only her. She would close at 9. He would come in shyly and buy a bottle of soap bubbles out of every book. She was stunned. Then he would wait for her leaning against the wall of the bookshop, to close her books; he would meekly follow her home, writing her every evening with bubbles. She loved it and lived for the rest of her life on the path he wrote. Today bookstores like this are antique bookshops. Where in the evening sometimes it smells of life.
(Translated by Florina Georgiana Țîncu / 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.