Novel
Frunze de dor
Not translated into English
Ion Druță · 1957
Synopsis
Valea Răzeșilor, a Moldavian village, from spring to autumn 1945: the war is ending, Trofimaș watches every day for a letter from the front, and the young people plough, sow peas, hoe the hillsides and meet in the evening at the club. Gheorghe, dreamy and indecisive, loves Rusanda, who wants to educate herself and become a schoolteacher; this choice, which raises her above her village, widens the distance between them, while another couple, Domnica and Scridon, goes its own way. Gheorghe is slow to declare himself.
Context
The novel, finished two years earlier and handed to the magazine Nistru, then edited by George Meniuc, appeared in 1957 from the State Publishing House of Moldavia, presented at the time as a simple narrative; the first edition in the Latin alphabet dates from 1990. Natalia Străjescu, of Tiraspol State University, stresses a narration that is above all lyrical, where digressions and reveries carry the emotion, and regards it as a masterpiece of the literature of Bessarabia.
Who it is for
A lyrical prose work in Romanian, steeped in the language and the work of the fields; reading it requires no prior knowledge.
Prizes and reception
Eighteen editions since 1957, more than any other book by a Bessarabian writer.
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