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This paper makes a case for analyzing the way in which the novel of Communism is approached by Mihai Iovănel in his History of Contemporary Romanian Literature: 1990-2020. This is a topic that was intensely discussed by Romanian literary criticism in Post-communism and represents the weakness of Romanian literature, either by it not being able to give a sufficiently convincing novel, or by not being able to agree upon how this novel should look. Accordingly, the critics had difficulties in labeling any novel that had been published after ‘89s as “the novel of communism.” The first part of the article is a panning of recent discussions about this term in relation to the analysis made by Iovănel in his History. The second part aims to trace out a network of this type of novel in the literatures of Central and Eastern Europe and to try to identify its particularities through a comparative analysis. The last part consists of a study case of the novels Acasă, pe câmpia Armaghedonului [At home, on the Field of Armageddon] by Marta Petreu and Bureți de Fag [Oyster Mushrooms] by Mihai Duțescu. The latter has been published after the History and both novels are analyzed from the perspective of the novel of communism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes the way in which explicit inter-imperial debates are incorporated through narrative discourse and characters’ discourse in two Romanian novels. Drawing on Anca Parvulescu and Manuela Boatcă’s recently published book Creolizing the Modern: Transylvania across Empires (Cornell University Press, 2022), Baghiu re-reads Liviu Rebreanu’s 1920 Ion and Sofia Nădejde’s 1903 Patimi in a world system frame. The analysis shows that Liviu Rebreanu’s novel features a form of static inter-imperiality, while Sofia Nădejde’s novel engages forms of exploratory inter-imperiality. This is due to the fact that Sofia Nădejde’s novel is set in Moldavia, a region of Romania that lies precisely at the intersection of the Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, and Tsarist empires, while Rebreanu’s novel is set in Transylvania, a region that can be read in both inter-imperial and intra-imperial keys (since it is very dependent on the Austro-Hungarian empire). The two models show that the first feminist novel in Romanian literature is also an exploratory inter-imperial novel (Patimi), while the first modernist novel is a static inter-imperial novel (Ion). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This study aims to depict women’s authorship and their contribution to literature, while taking into consideration the genesis of female identity at the intersection between motherhood and feminism. I intend to do a neo-feminist exploration of the collective volume “Povești cu scriitoare și copii” [Stories with Women Writers and Children], coordinated by Alina Purcaru, an example of writing the self using poetry and affection – in other words, l’écriture féminine. Given the fact that the main goal of this study is the investigation of motherhood, while focusing on specific issues such as the body, agency, autonomy, alterity, and their relation to the patriarchal norms, the result is a compassionate approach to writing from the point of view of female authors. To create and procreate become the epitome of this study, in a field ever so dynamic as the ethics of birth and literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Combining the instruments of quantitative analysis with those of genre theory, the present article studies the ratio, characteristics, and tendencies underpinning the most important subgenres of the Romanian novel between 1901 and 1932. Among these subgenres, we lay special emphasis on those of popular fiction, on the social, historical, sentimental, psychological, and philosophical novel, as well as on the so-called "event novel". The conclusions of our inquiry illustrate the ever-growing divide between artistic literature and popular fiction, the recasting of the Romanian novelistic subgenres during the early 20th century, and the gradual relocation of the novelists' focus from the unmediated depiction of events towards the world and the individual self. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

„Homeric" by Doina Ruști is a novel of pure literature and a feast to the fluent reader. It is a captivating, impeccably structured novel, which arouses the readers' interest until the very last page. Homer glorified heroes, and the novel „Homeric" by Doina Ruşti, goes deeper than humble humans have ever gone before in search of that heroic dimension, not with the aim of unveiling or exploring it but because dissatisfaction lies at the root of this dimension, which makes humans strive for more, wish for more, love something more. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]