The Romanian (45 page)

Although this eccentric undertaking was often not without doubts that came from me and were projected toward those around me, I hope that those who helped will conclude that it's been justified.

 

Versions of passages from this book appeared in the following publications between 1999 and 2004:

READINGS

TWELVE BOOKS provided most of the information about Romania and its people, or inspiration during this project. In order of personal importance, they are:

 

The Bandits
by Panaït Istrati, translated from the French by William A. Drake (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1929)

 

Kyra Kyralina
by Panaït Istrati, translated from the French by James Whitall (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1926)

 

The Playboy King: Carol II of Romania
by Paul D. Quinlan (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1995)

 

Lupescu: The Story of a Royal Love Affair
by Alice-Leone Moats (New York: Henry Holt, 1955)

 

The Last Romantic: A Biography of Queen Marie of Roumania
by Hannah Pakula (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984)

Brancusi / The Kiss
by Sidney Geist (New York: Harper & Row, 1978)

 

Athene Palace
by R. G. Waldeck (New York: Robert M. McBride, 1942)

 

The Saint of Montparnasse
by Peter Neagoe (Philadelphia and New York: Chilton, 1965)

 

King Carol, Hitler and Lupescu
by A. L. Easterman (London: Victor Gollancz, 1942)

 

Romanian Rhapsody: An Overlooked Corner of Europe
by Dominique Fernandez (New York: Algora, 2000)

 

Constantin Brancusi, 1876-1957
by Friedrich Teja Bach, Margit Rowell and Ann Temkin (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, and Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1995)

 

Ten Steps Closer to Romania,
conceived by Antoaneta Tănăsescu and edited by Cipriana Petre; translated by Adrian Bratfanof; English version revised by Stefan Lupp (Bucharest: Romanian Cultural Foundation, 1999)

 

Other books that I consulted:

 

Brancusi
by Ionel Jianou (New York: Tudor, 1963)

 

Brancusi and Rumanian Folk Traditions
by Edith Balas (Boulder: East European Monographs, 1987)

 

Romania: The Rough Guide
by Tim Burford and Dan Richardson (London: Rough Guides, 1998)

Singuratatea . . . meseria mea
by Johnny Răducanu (Bucharest: Regent House, 2001)

 

Bury Me Standing: The Gypsies and Their Journey
by Isabel Fonseca (New York: Vintage, 1995)

 

Balkan Ghosts
by Robert D. Kaplan (New York: Vintage, 1994)

 

The Prodigals
by Petru Dumitriu, translated from the French by Norman Denny (New York: Pantheon, 1962)

 

The Story of Romanian Gastronomy
by Matei Cazacu, translated by Laura Beldiman (Bucharest: Romanian Cultural Foundation, 1999)

 

The Black Envelope
by Norman Manea, translated by Patrick Camiller (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1995)

 

Red Horizons: Chronicles of a Communist Spy Chief
by Ion Mihai Pacepa (Washington, DC: Regnery Gateway, 1987)

 

Journal: 1935-1944, The Fascist Years
by Mihail Sebastian, translated by Patrick Camiller (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2000)

 

America Seen by a Queen: Queen Marie's Diary of Her 1926 Voyage to the United States of America,
edited by Adrian-Silvan Ionescu (Bucharest: Romanian Cultural Foundation, 1999)

 

Roumanian Journey
by Sacheverell Sitwell (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992; originally published 1938)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

BRUCE BENDERSON is the first American to receive France's prestigious literary award the Prix de Flore. He is the author of two works of fiction,
User
and
Pretending to Say No,
and several works of nonfiction, including
Toward the New Degeneracy
and
James Bidgood.
A translator of French literature who has worked as a journalist for numerous American and French publications, including
The New York Times Magazine
and
Libération,
Benderson lives in New York City and Miami.