Tatiana Niculescu Bran
Biography
Tatiana Niculescu Bran graduated from the Literature Faculty of Bucharest University and the European Institute of Journalism in Brussels. Between 1995 and 2004 she worked as an editor for the Romanian Section of the BBC World Service in London. Between 2004 and 2008 she was head of the Bucharest bureau of the BBC World Service. In 2006, she published the first non-fiction novel in Romanian literature, Spovedanie la Tanacu (Deadly Confession), followed, in 2007, by Cartea Judecatorilor (The Book of the Judges) and In tara lui Dumnezeu (In the Land of God), in 2012. In 2012 Palm d’Or film director Cristian Mungiu won the best screenplay award at Cannes Film Festival for his film Beyond the Hills inspired by the two novels. In 2007 the author had adapted her two novels for the...
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Novel, "Ego. Proza" series, Polirom, 2012, 216 pages Book presentation
Irina and her retarded brother Vasile have spent their childhood in a state orphanage, subjected to systematic abuse. They visit Irina’s best friend and teenage lover, the nun Kitza, in a remote convent in rural Romania before Irina’s final emigration to Germany. Kitza encourages Irina to confess her earlier experiences of paedophilia, beatings and masturbation to Father Daniel, the young, ambitious, anti-Western priest who runs the convent. She suffers a violent fit and is taken from one hospital to another, until a psychiatrist and self-appointed ‘mystic’ diagnoses schizophrenia and treats her with the harshest chemicals. Returning to the convent, Irina seems to be feel better. Accompanied by two nuns, she pays a visit to her foster family in Banat and discovers they have confiscated her savings an already replaced her with another abandoned girl. Back to the monastery she is confused when she must atone for her sins in a further confession. A guidance booklet listing two hundred sins plunges her into renewed mental turmoil, leading to a second fit characterised by extreme aggressiveness. Father Daniel, believing her to be demonised, has her tied to a makeshift stretcher in the shape of a cross and conducts a ritual exorcism.
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Novel, "Ego. Prose" series, Polirom, 2011, 240 pages Book presentation
He is ninety-two, has a controversial past, and is suffering from prostate problems. He lives in a palace, where he is waited upon like a Byzantine emperor. His nights are haunted by illness and memories of a life dedicated to the Church and the political powers of the day, from the Iron Guard to the Communists. His days are dominated by the urgent matter of settling who will succeed him on the throne of the Patriarchate of the Romanian Orthodox Church. Canny and wily, the old man knows he is surrounded by unscrupulous individuals ready to usurp him at any time. He can number his trusted friends on the fingers of one hand. The younger men in his entourage despise his political compromises, while those with the real power mislead him, allowing him to believe he is the master of his own decisions. The tentacles of power hold him in their clutches up to death’s door and even beyond. Will the Patriarch succeed in thwarting his rivals’ plans?
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Novel, Ego. Prose series, Polirom, 2012, 248 pages Book presentation
André is ten and has come to spend his holiday with his father, a French diplomat in the Horn of Africa. The boy discovers a fairy-tale world: on one hand, the army fighting the Somali pirates, on the other, the ancient race of the Afars. He befriends an Afar girl, Hani, who is going to be put through a forbidden ritual, inherited from the Egyptian Pharaohs. While the children re-enact scenes from Star Wars and find their first love, around them reality takes a brutal turn: the Arab revolution is about to begin, the girl is taken to a forest where she will be subjected to the ritual genital excision, and André is sent back to France on a military plane. |
