De Roemeense schrijfster en vertaalster Lavinia Braniște werd geboren op 23 februari 1983 in Brăila. Zij is in 2006 afgestudeerd aan de letterenfaculteit van de Babeș-Bolyaiuniversiteit in Cluj-Napoca, Zij behaalde een Master in het vertalen van literaire (Franse) literatuur aan de universiteit van Boekarest, en promoveerde in 2007 met een proefschrift over voetnoten in de literaire vertaling. Ook behaalde zij een Europese Master voor de opleiding van conferentietolken, universiteit van Boekarest, specialisatie Engels-Frans (2010-2012). Zij werkte als redacteur (o.a. Cluj, ART, Boekarest). Zij vertaalde boeken naar het Roemeens van o.a. Henry Miller, “A Devil in Paradise”; A.A. Milne – “When We Were Very Young; Now We Are Six”; Kate DiCamillo – T”he Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane”; Ruth Stiles Gannett – “My Father’s Dragon”; Kate DiCamillo – “Flora and Ulysses”; Luis Sepulveda – “Historia de una gaviota y del gato que le enseñó a volar”; V.S. Naipaul – “Magic Seeds” etc. Gepubliceerd werk: Escapada (short stories), 2014; “Vijf minuten per dag” (“Cinci minute pe zi” – korte proza), 2011; “Verhalen bij mij” (Poveşti cu mine“ – gedichten), 2006. In 2016 verscheen haar eerste roman “Interior zero”.
Uit: Interior Zero (Vertaald door Alistair Ian Blyth)
« Mother has been working in Spain for so long that it seems like forever. She works in tourism, at the seaside, and comes home once a year, out of season. She arranges it so that she will catch the winter holidays. For years and years, she hasn’t seen Romania in leaf or in bloom, she always comes when it’s muddy, when people are grey and muffled up, and she gets the impression that the country is a depressing place. Sometimes she’ll be here when it snows and it makes her as happy as a small child, her woolly hat slips down over her eyes and she blows her nose and she shovels the snow out of the yard. And after that she tells the people in Spain that it was snowing here and they are amazed and they always say that they ought to come to visit Romania at least once.
When she comes to my house in Bucharest, I always draw up a plan for where we can go and what we can do to have fun, so that we won’t sit in my one room flat and get bored.
We’ve set aside a whole day to do a tour of Berceni and the new housing blocks. So that we can see what they’re like, because I’ve been sending her links about the new blocks, and if I decide to take out a loan, she’ll give me the deposit.
There’s a little bit of sun in the morning, but by the time we leave the house, we’ve missed it. The day turns grey again, like it was yesterday and the day before yesterday. We get on the metro, change at Victoriei and then sit next to each other during the long journey to Dimitrie Leonida. I tell her that the new metro trains are built in Spain. And that the woman who announces the stations has taken Metrorex to court, because they didn’t pay her. I don’t know what else to tell her about Romania.
“But isn’t she from the time of Ceausescu ?”
“No, it’s a young woman. An actress.”
The Dimitrie Leonida metro station is a time capsule and Mother likes it. But when we come outside onto the boulevard she doesn’t like it.
“Oh dear.”
We turn left at random and the asphalt immediately peters out. Here and there between the new housing blocks you can see a rustic yard, which has survived the real estate invasion. A cowpat, a horse neighing, a cockerel. I think it’s nice. Far from the madness of the city. And this is the only area where a one room flat costs twenty thousand.
“Where are the drains ?” wonders Mother.
“I read on the chat rooms that the ones that are farther from the main road don’t have drains. They have septic tanks.”
“What’s a septic tank ?”
Lavinia Braniște (Brăila, 23 februari 1983)